In the latter stages of his career in the saddle he may be but the joy of riding a winner at the Cheltenham Festival commands a broader-than-ever smile from Ruby Walsh, who didn’t have to wait long to make that familiar walk back to the winner’s enclosure.

It has become an all-too-familiar refrain now but we remain in some sort of limbo until we get a serious drop of rain. It’s good, good-to-yielding ground, there are people mowing lawns, midges flying around – there’s nothing Januaryesque about it, writes Ruby Walsh.

Willie Mullins has three potential runners as he bids to continue his dominance of the Sky Bet Moscow Flyer Novice Hurdle at Punchestown.

Show jumper Billy Twomey pocketed €30,000 yesterday when he won the Hamburg Derby in Germany on Diaghilev.