HAVING ridden seven winners at the Festival, Carl Llewellyn knows what will be going through the jockeys' minds as they compete for glory over the four days of the Festival.

"My memory from riding at Cheltenham is that it's madly competitive," said trainer Nigel Twiston-Davies' business partner.

"You have to be so on the ball because you make lots of decisions in a race and if you make one wrong one you can lose the race and it's so easy to get it wrong.

"If you get behind the wrong horse at the top of the hill and it starts coming back, you're stuck and rest have gone.

"When I won the Pertemps on Rubhahunish in 2000, we were last passing the stands with a circuit to go and you need a lot of luck to win to get past 20-odd runners, with all the bumping and knowing anything could bring you down."

Llewellyn said the weighing room was an extraordinary place during the meeting.

"It means more and people are more wound-up, but it's a great atmosphere in the weighing room.

"People are very aware that it's massive, the adrenalin's going and all day you're buzzing.

"The best feeling is winning the first race on day one because you can relax a little bit then. If get to the last day and you've not had a winner, you start to think it's not going to happen."