IF you wanted a snapshot of the place of the Galway Plate in the kaleidoscope that is Irish National Hunt racing, you got it on Wednesday. In the 2016 renewal when six horses rounded the home turn with a chance of winning: three of them trained by Willie Mullins, three of them trained by Gordon Elliott.

The snapshot went further too. Three of the six horses were owned by Gigginstown House, who had a foot in each camp – or, more accurately, two feet in the Elliott camp, one foot in the Mullins camp – and one was owned by Susannah Ricci.

The top riders were there too, Ruby Walsh and Paul Townend and Jack Kennedy, with (more feet and more camps) David Mullins riding Devils Bride for his uncle Willie, and Danny Mullins riding Shadow Catcher for Gordon Elliott, who isn’t his uncle.

In the end it was the 5lb-claiming Donagh Meyler – comfortable and capable among the giants of his profession – who emerged victorious on Lord Scoundrel, who was running at Galway for the first time since he won a novice chase there last October. There are horses for courses, and then there is Galway, where the horses and courses thing seems to be more relevant than it is even in the dictionary of clichés.

It was Gordon Elliott’s first Galway Plate, and it was Gigginstown House’s second in three years. That means that the last seven renewals of the Plate have been won by JP McManus (3), Gigginstown House Stud (2), Susannah Ricci (1) and Ann and Alan Potts (1), the four top owners in Ireland last season.

There is also the small matter of the subsequent Grade 1 winning exploits of 2013 winner Carlingford Lough and 2014 winner Road To Riches. The Plate may be a summer handicap chase, but it matters all right.