PENHILL won a slightly substandard Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle, in which the pace was on the steady side (winner recorded a 106% finishing speed), with a timefigure of 146. That has him joint-ninth among novice hurdlers this season at the time of writing.

The Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle was not much more truly-run (finishing speed of 104.5%), but Champagne Classic emerged comfortably on top with a 137 timefigure. Lastly, Rock The World won the concluding Johnny Henderson Grand Annual with an up-to-scratch timefigure of 150.

Sixth-placed Calipto caught the eye making late gains in the latter, and sectionals confirm this was a promising effort from a gelding who had been off for nearly a year and switched stables in the meantime.

An overall health check of the 2017 Cheltenham Festival is pretty favourable: the average Timeform performance rating of a winner was at its highest in recent years.

INSPECTION

However, closer inspection does show that it was the handicaps which prospered, whereas the average rating of the non-handicaps were at the joint-third-lowest in the last decade and the highest rating achieved across the four days was lower than in any year in the last 10 other than 2014.

There is no such thing as a bad Cheltenham Festival, but this was not a vintage one by most objective form-and-time rating means. Unless you were an Irish racehorse trainer, perhaps!