THE 2017 Cheltenham Festival may not have been as successful as last year’s renewal from the perspective of Irish point-to-point graduates but, for me, one of the performances of the meeting came in Thursday’s Grade 1 JLT Novices’ Chase from the winner, Yorkhill.

Victorious 12 months earlier in the Neptune Novices’ Hurdle, also Grade 1, the 2010 Presenting gelding first caught the eye when, on his debut for owner Wilson Dennison and trainer Colin McKeever, he powered away from his opponents in the four-year-old maiden at Toomebridge in November 2014.