Every two hours here, the band in the Guinness Village strikes up Fairytale of New York. It can sound incongruous at times, but not in yesterday's bitter cold, when you really could believe it was Christmas Eve in the drunk-tank.
The line about the horse coming it at 18-1 was poignant too, after the carnage of Wednesday, when horses came in at 33-1 and only the bookies were laughing.
On day three, punters got some of their own back - one punter in particular. The two sets of initials bookmakers most dread, AP and JP, combined to land a huge gamble in the opening race.
"He didn't run loose, anyway," was JP McManus's cryptic comment when asked if he'd had a bet on Reveillez, before he added that, yes, he'd had a bit of a touch at 6-1.
The horse finished 9-2 favourite and word from the betting ring was that the bookie to the big hitters, Freddie Williams, had laid a £100,000 bet to lose £600,000 on Reveillez. We could draw our own conclusions, but most conclusions were that there was another million euro heading for JP's bank account.
Waiting in the parade ring, he accepted congratulations as the winning owner from the Michaels Smurfit and Lowry, the latter commenting: "You've broken your duck now, there'll be no stopping you."
Then AP (McCoy) arrived back on the winner, exchanging a private joke with the owner. From the reception given to the English-trained horse, either the crowd thought JP needed the few bob or they had money on it themselves.
Not everyone was so lucky. Pity two young Dubliners who travelled to Cheltenham especially for yesterday's feature race, the World Hurdle, to cheer Johnny Murtagh to victory on Golden Cross. "He's married to a girl from my estate," said Jude Clonan from Castleknock, who had backed Murtagh's horse at 25-1 and stood to earn €1,200 if it won. His friend David Cavanagh had €65 riding on it at 7-1.
Such was their confidence, they unfurled a Tricolour on the parade ring rails even before the horses went out.
A top flat jockey, Murtagh was seeking to make history by winning one of the big prizes of jump racing. And when he chased My Way de Solzen up the hill from the last hurdle, the smart money was on the Irishman to get his mount's nose in front.
Instead, the English-trained horse held on to win by a flared nostril. This time, JP was among the losers, as his veteran former champion Baracouda failed to roll back the years and finished fifth. Significantly, the owner had not risked a bet.
We had to wait until the last race for an Irish winner, by which time - given the sub-zero wind-chill and the fact that the horse was a rank outsider - it was a bit short of friends. What they lacked in numbers, however, they made up in quality.
Kadoun was yet another JP McManus horse and joining him in the winners' enclosure were Irish soccer manager Steve Staunton and former international Niall Quinn. "We saw JP backing him so we backed him too," Quinn said.
Charlie McCreevy and his wife Noeleen turned up too. Surely they had not bet on the winner, we asked. "No, but my son did," said Noeleen.
JP wondered what the horse had come in at, and we told him 50-1. Then, before you could say "It was Christmas Eve, babe", it started snowing.