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.”