THE decision that the Cooper family and Jessica Harrington made to by-pass the Cheltenham Festival with Our Duke was an incredibly astute decision.

It’s one thing if you are an owner with an abundance of Cheltenham-type horses, if you are going to have plenty of runners at the Festival anyway. It is probably easier in that instance to be patient with one or two of them, to by-pass the Festival with one or two, if it isn’t the thing for them this year.