Blessed are the horses today at Cheltenham

This is one of the most exciting times of the year for British and Irish horse-racing fans. The Cheltenham Racing Festival has started. It's a great social event set in the Cotswolds, a range of hills in west-central England, where everyone, including the royal family and ruddy-faced farmers, rubs shoulders for four days.

Cheltenham is famous, too, for the presence of race-loving Irish priests, whose enthusiasm for horses almost exceeds their interest in clerical work. The best-known of these was Father Sean Breen, whose parish of Ballymore Eustace in County Kildare is home to three racecourses. Father Breen, who died last year, always blessed the Irish horses at Cheltenham, and his favourites rarely lost. One person who made a lot of money from "The Breener's" tips is Sister Rita Dawson. The Tipperary-born nun has spent her winnings on improving her workplace, the St Margaret of Scotland Hospice in Clydebank, which cares for people with terminal illnesses.