I was distracted by an email from Ryanair today that was offering 1 million free seats if its horse Mossbank won the 2.55 - incidentally the horse came in 2nd.

My colleague told me it was slow to start off - reminded me of a few times I've sat on the runway on a Ryanair flight.

To get to the point - I have always felt that horse-races are a potential indication of a country's economic performance, measuring spending power and local confidence in the market.

I like to attend horse races so this type of fuzzy analysis comes easy.
I am in no way suggesting that horse-racing is directly linked to economic performance or house price growth, but I am saying that it is ONE of the ways I like to measure local market confidence.

For instance, I have been to the Galway races in Ireland on several occasions.
Over the past number of years the races have attracted more and more non-racing types, as it were people that were more interested in who was in the corporate tent than who was in the 3.15.

Each year the visitor numbers, along with the volume of helicopter traffic increased, and it became all about big bets and even bigger hats.

This is not an exact science - this is fuzzy analysis - I believe that property investment is not all about economics - it's also about sentiment and confidence in the market.

As the Irish economy boomed, investor confidence could be measured at the races.

I'm not saying that this year's Galway races will be a disaster due to the performance in the Irish economy - after all, horse racing is in the Irish psyche, but I am just putting it out there during the Cheltenham festival week to see if anyone else sees even the smallest method in my madness!

It's a bit of a long shot - and this year's weather will not have helped matters, but I will be watching visitor numbers at Cheltenham this year.

PS - Any tips would also be welcome!