THERE wasn’t any obvious local connection to the winners at Cheltenham last Thursday and Friday but the Henry de Bromhead-trained, Darragh O’Keeffe-ridden Heart Wood, winner of the Grade 1 Ryanair Chase on the Thursday, was sent to Northern Ireland as a foal.

Runner-up in the same race last year, the Choeur Du Nord bay was born in France and returned there as a yearling but spent much of the intervening time in Co Antrim being cared for by Graham McKeever whose Tildarg Stables consigned the then yearling colt to the 2019 November National Hunt Sale at Tattersalls Ireland.