“GAME on!”, as our American cousins might put it. And there is every chance that the “game” in question – Apple’s Jade versus Buveur d’Air in the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham on Tuesday, March 12th – will live up to expectations in a way that last Sunday night’s American Super Bowl did not.

Apple’s Jade has been shaping for a while as if she is the best hurdler around, but that had been at longer trips. The BHP Insurance Irish Champion Hurdle at Leopardstown last Saturday settled once and for all the question of whether she is as good at two miles: the answer was an emphatic “yes”. She will take on champion hurdler Buveur d’Air in hurdling’s blue riband in a few weeks’ time. Quite right, too: I think she will win.