LOOKING forward to Cheltenham 2017 is as exciting as looking back at the week gone by when you contemplate the clashes that might be on the cards in next year’s championship races. Then look back at the horses that left us salivating in previous years. Faugheen and Coneygree were absent this year but will be back. Other stars in Simonsig, Weapon’s Amnesty, Mikael D’Haguenet, Our Conor, Champagne Fever had all looked to have great futures ahead of them but it never came to be. Let’s hope that every 2016 winner will have the chance to return.

Follow the leaders

So much of Cheltenham was all about the obvious, and the most likely of all outcomes was that the three amateur riders’ races would be won by Derek O’Connor, Jamie Codd and Nina Carberry. Hindsight is simple.

The also rans

Comments on too many Willie Mullins winners were never going to be welcome for the duration of the festival as we all became team Ireland. Thrilling as it was to enjoy such top class winners, the question now is where do those who weren’t good enough fit in? Willie ran six in the Albert Bartlett, seven in the bumper, he had five who didn’t make the first three between the Supreme and Neptune. They didn’t make Grade 1 standard but they were not bad horses either. Where are the races for them for the rest of the year?

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“He’s the happiest horse I’ve trained in 30 years. If he was an ice cream, he’d lick himself to death.” Eddie Lynam on Sole Power in Meydan