THE opening day of the Cheltenham Festival was certainly a fine advertisement for the expanding band of mares being put in training, as they claimed three of the day’s four Grade 1 prizes courtesy of Put The Kettle On, Epatante and Honeysuckle.

The latter forms part of a particularly strong crop of mares that are emerging from within the point-to-point fields, having won her four-year-old mares’ maiden at Dromahane for Mark O’Hare and Jerry Cosgrave. Since then, she has won eight races under rules, four of which have come at the highest level in Grade 1 company.