THE Bective Stud, Tea Rooms & Apartments Handicap Hurdle at Navan is perhaps the sternest stamina test over hurdles in Ireland, run over an extended three miles and one furlong at a stiff track on ground that is typically soft.

There are other tracks that host hurdle races over further than three miles, but many are summer tracks like Galway, Sligo and Kilbeggan, and the specific circumstances last Saturday meant a stiff test became an extreme one.