THE news that Annie Power would miss this year’s Cheltenham Festival was greeted with universal glumness on Wednesday.

Willie Mullins said that it was a knee ligament, which would take six to nine weeks to heal. She could be back for Punchestown, which would be something. Annie Power is a remarkable racemare. She won her first two bumpers for Jim Bolger with Patrick Mullins on board. “There was a two-fold advantage to that,” Bolger would say later. “I had a top pilot and I had a customer afterwards.”

Then she won her third bumper for Willie Mullins with Patrick Mullins on board, and she won her maiden hurdle for Willie Mullins with Patrick Mullins on board. Indeed, she has rarely been beaten. Just once, actually, when she stood up, out-stayed by More Of That in the World Hurdle in 2014 on her only attempt ever at three miles, and once when she fell down, that infamous Mares’ Hurdle fall in 2015 at the last when she was clear.

She has won 12 of her 14 hurdle races, 11 of them under Ruby Walsh, five of them Grade 1s. And it is arguable that her last win, when she beat My Tent Or Yours and Nichols Canyon by 18 lengths and nine lengths in the Aintree Hurdle last April, was her best.

Hopefully she will get back for Punchestown but, if she doesn’t, hopefully she will be back for next season. She will be nine rising 10 next season, but, all things being equal, there should still be more to come, as evidenced by the fact that she recorded the highest Timeform rating of her career on her latest run.

And remember, Quevega won her sixth (sic.) Mares’ Hurdle as a 10-year-old.