THE Irish/British thing was centre stage again, as it usually is at Cheltenham. It was centre-stage even in the late 1980s and early 1990s, although it wasn’t much of a competition then, unless you think that Manchester City v Accrington Stanley is competition, with Manchester City playing at home.

Back then, you never really thought that we would ever get to a point at which there would be as many Irish-trained winners as British-trained winners at the Cheltenham Festival. Even in 2006, when Irish-trained horses won 10 of the 24 races, it was surely a blip, and that hypothesis was proved when there were just five in 2007.

It was only in 2011 that the realisation dawned that there could be a year in which there would be as many Irish winners as British winners. That year, Irish-trained horses won 13 of the first 26 races, and the Robert Tyner-trained Askthemaster, the sole Irish representative in the final race, the Grand Annual, a 50/1 shot, challenged between the final two fences before giving best to the 40/1 shot Oiseau De Nuit.

Just five Irish winners in 2012 suggested that that might have been a blip as well, but then the trend took hold: 14 Irish winners out of 27 races in 2013, 12 out of 27 in 2014, 13 out of 27 in 2015, 15 out of 28 in 2016, 19 out of 28 last year, 17 out of 28 this year.

Now it’s a competition. In four of the last six years, there have been more Irish-trained winners than British-trained winners at the Cheltenham Festival. It is also true that, in four of the last 66 years, there have been more Irish-trained winners than British-trained winners at the Cheltenham Festival.

In the last seven years, there have been 95 Irish-trained winners and 97 British-trained winners.

KNEE-JERK

Talk of an Irish domination is misplaced, and talk of protectionism is surely just knee-jerk-reaction talk. Maybe somebody was talking about Brexit and somebody else just overheard.

And the argument that Irish horses are leniently handicapped does not stand up. There were 10 handicaps run last week, five were won by an Irish-trained horse and five were won by a British-trained horse. Fair, you think. 50-50. Not, however, when you consider that 12 of the 18 non-handicaps were won by an Irish-trained horse.

So 67% of the non-handicaps were won by an Irish horse, as against just 50% of the handicaps.

Also, Irish-trained horses filled 16 of the 36 places that were available in the non-handicaps (second and third in each of the 18 races), and British-trained horses filled 19 (including a dead-heat between two British-trained horses in the Foxhunter) and a French-trained horse, Urgent De Gregaine, finished second in the Cross-Country Chase.

That’s 44% of the places in non-handicaps filled by Irish-trained horses.

Compare that with the handicaps, in which Irish-trained horses filled just eight of the 30 places available (second to fourth in each of the 10 races) and British-trained horses filled 22. That’s less that 27% of the places filled by Irish-trained horses. That’s 17 percentage points lower than that which you would expect given their performance in non-handicaps.

These are small sample sizes, 28 races is not a lot of races in the broad scheme of things, despite the fact that little else seems to matter when you are in the thick of them. Four days is not long enough to be the long run.

And, if Irish-trained horses seem to have the upper hand now, you know that these things tend to be cyclical. We should enjoy the competition, celebrate the success.