THURSDAY at Punchestown this week provided conditions that were definitely more Shackleton than spring-like. I love the festival but cannot remember being colder than I was for parts on Thursday. If Richie Galway and his team there decide to follow Lansdowne Road and Highbury by selling the naming rights to a commercial enterprise, it was a perfect opportunity to pitch to those local operations Kildare Chilling or QK Cold Stores.

On occasions such as this, it must be impossible to judge the best dressed lady because most of the contestants look as if they have been denied access to a weather forecast… or a mirror… or both. As a father of a teenage daughter I spend quite some time these days in lively debate about “appropriate dress” and I wish that she could have been there on Thursday to see the positives in my argument.