OVER the first two days of Cheltenham, there were no Northern-owned, trained or bred winners but Willie Mullins did pay tribute to the huge input of Harold Kirk into the success of his Closutton yard following the Co Carlow trainer’s 100th Festival victory on Wednesday.

Simon Munir and Isaac Souede’s Jasmin De Vaux, the horse who brought up that amazing figure under the trainer’s son Patrick in the Grade 1 Weatherbys Champion Bumper, had landed a Naas bumper for the same connections on his only other racecourse start in late January.