It is only when one sat down to watch the race in peace and quiet that you began to fully appreciate the ride Davy Russell gave Lord Windermere in the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

If Sam Twiston-Davies isn’t a star of the future then I’ll eat my hat. Following the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham on Tuesday he was inconsolable, but the young man had little about which to beat himself up.

Someone once defined a pessimist as an informed optimist, and here’s a scribbler who can readily identify with such a description on the lead-in to Cheltenham.

Wasn’t the racing in Ireland last weekend desperately disappointing? What is happening in the National Hunt game in this country is simply turning punters off.

The ex-French mare Adriana Des Mottes, who created a very favourable impression on her Irish debut, gets the nap in the Grade 2 Winning Fair Juvenile Hurdle at Fairyhouse this afternoon.

The Hennessy meeting at Leopardstown is a great starting point for anyone attempting to identify possible Cheltenham festival winners.

When a horse does a number of things wrong through a race and still wins in a canter then you have to sit up and take notice.

The handicapper, Noel O’Brien, was entitled to allow himself a little smile, following the running of the valuable boylesports.com Handicap Hurdle at Leopardstown last Saturday.

Philip Fenton, one of the quiet men of Irish racing, hasn’t half emerged with real credit over the last ten days or so.

It’s the million dollar question: just how good is Un De Sceaux?