NINTEEN Irish-trained winners was an unbelievable haul and, if the Cheltenham Festival is a barometer of the health of the Irish National Hunt industry, things have rarely been better.

Of course, it is not as simple as that, there were more British-trained horses placed than Irish-trained horses, but it is a good starting point. The meeting was dominated by Gordon Elliott and Willie Mullins, as their domination of the Irish scene travelled east, and hasn’t there been a seismic shift since the late 1980s and early 1990s – two Irish trainers having six Cheltenham Festival winners each – when Irish trainers as a collective struggled to muster more than four winners between them. Only once in the 12 festivals that ran from 1984-1995 inclusive were there more than four Irish-trained winners. It wasn’t all about dominance though. The seven Irish-trained winners who were not trained by Mullins or Elliott were spread among five different Irish trainers. Alan Fleming, Noel Meade, Pat Kelly and Henry de Bromhead had one each, while Jessica Harrington had three.