Brendan O’Brien, Cheltenham

SO much tweed, so little style.

Yep, the fashion police have long turned a blind eye to the sport of kings and ‘Exhibit A’ has always been the Cheltenham Festival where that much-mocked itchy, woollen fabric is still all the rage.

Hats, scarves, jumpers, jackets, trousers – there’s no getting away from it in this place and there are dozens of stalls packed with the stuff should the need arise to add an extra layer on some exposed inch of flesh.

The real aficionados go the whole hog, of course, with matching trilby and obligatory brown shoes, and it isn’t just the chaps who choose to foist such traditional stuffiness upon themselves either.

Prince William’s girlfriend, Kate Middleton, is the woman most synonymous with the rustic look but there are hundreds of ladies following in her wake this week. Some of them even manage to make it look sexy.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the most of the ‘outfits’ that adorned National Paddywhackery Day when twigs of shamrock could be bought for £2.50 at the course entrance.

One guy somehow thought that wearing a white jacket with one green sleeve and one orange was a good idea while a small, elderly gentleman looked for all the world like Jimmy O’Dea’s king of the leprechauns in Darby O’Gill.

King Brian. Remember him?

All this guy was missing was the fine red beard and a crown.

To be fair, it hasn’t been all bad. Many a man has managed to pull off the country squire look in a debonair Sean Connery/James Bond kind of way and the dawning of Ladies Day has seen a switch to more accepted fashions.

The only change in trends most punters care about right now is the one which has seen the bookies make a fortune from their own misery thanks to a run of just two winning favourites from the first 13 races.

We’ve already exhausted all the annual clichés halfway through – about the Paddys who will have to swim home and about a group of Scousers who have had to thumb lifts back to Merseyside.

And amidst it all, the pantomime villains are making hay. Many a bookie has described the first two days of action as a ‘bloodbath for punters’ and yet still they keep coming, like no-nothing lambs to the slaughter.

Which reminds me, anyone got any tips?