YOU quickly realise the popularity of jumping horses when Liam Healy’s tweet of a photo of Death Duty jumping at Tipperary - (the mighty “Double D” DEATH DUTY wins impressively for @_Davy_Russel_ @gelliott_racing) received 17 retweets and 77 likes.

The photo was of the horse jumping well, but to this observer, there were as many sketchy jumps as fluent ones. He made two bad mistakes and did not seem to be making the right shape over some fences, combined with his low head carriage. He was landing on his head.

Considering he came from a proper point-to-point academy in Pat Doyle’s and won his point impressively for Derek O’Connor, Death Duty not impressive here, and, famous last words, I would not take the 12/1 for him to win any race at the Festival on this basis. (This should not alarm anyone in Cullentra as it was some time before this writer became converted to Don Cossack being the horse he turned out to be.

By contrast, Sceau Royal, a horse who seemed to have trained off each season come Festival time, put in a very impressive debut over fences on Thursday at Warwick. Even though he’s not the biggest, he could have an exciting career over fences.