Stay on the good side of these 10 chasers in the months ahead.

Champion Irish National Hunt trainer Willie Mullins is missing from Royal Ascot this week through ill health.

There are few races of any significance which do not adorn Willie Mullins’ CV and, after yesterday’s Boylesports Irish Grand National, there is one less.

It is a first Irish Grand National success for Willie Mullins, who saddled the first three home.

The day starts well. (Spoiler alert: it will not continue in this vein.)

Hard to recall a Tuesday card at Cheltenham as difficult as today’s but Benie Des Dieux can be the punters’ pal on the opening day to the 2019 Festival by proving a class apart from her rivals in the OLBG Mares’ Hurdle.

As has become fairly traditional for me at this stage, Willie has left me on the side-lines the weekend before Cheltenham.

Faugheen returned to his majestic best with an impressive all-the-way win in the Ladbrokes Champion Stayers Hurdle at Punchestown.

There are plenty still holding out hope that Faugheen will reproduce his machine days once more in today’s Champion Hurdle, despite his most recent lacklustre efforts at Leopardstown.

Altior has suffered a fitness scare in preparation for tomorrow’s Betway Queen Mother Champion Chase at the Cheltenham Festival.

Ruby Walsh may not be worried... yet...

Willie Mullins has an assignment on Qipco Champions Day at Ascot in mind for Galway winner Renneti.

Willie Mullins fires a four-pronged assault on tomorrow's Rathbarry & Glenview Studs Novice Hurdle at Fairyhouse.

Tactically astute, the bookies were able to lure the punters into dangerous areas and dispossess them at will. But the indefatigable underdogs never knew when they were beaten, never knew when to stop, writes Larry Ryan.

Lost amid the fanfare of the Jockey Club’s recent £45m (€51.6m) facelift of Prestbury Park, with its 6,500-capacity grandstand, new members’ facilities and improved bars, was a fresh expanse of artificial grass about the size of a tennis court just to the left of the jockeys’ weighing room.

It’s been less than a week since a 26ft statue of Pharoah Ramses II, or Ozymandias as the Greeks liked to call him, was rescued from its ignoble resting place beneath a suburban Cairo slum and surrounded by dirty, running water.

Owner Rich Ricci says his “heart went out to Willie Mullins” when the trainer rang him to tell him three-time Cheltenham Festival winner Vautour had died in freak accident on Sunday.

It has been a turbulent week in Irish racing circles and, in the days dominated by the controversial process involved in the reappointment of Horse Racing Ireland CEO Brian Kavanagh, the news that two of the superpowers of National Hunt racing in Ireland have parted ways has kept the sport in the headlines.

In the so-called good old days, Listowel was always regarded as the real start of the National Hunt season.

Faugheen could potentially be stepped up in trip in order to avoid clashing with reigning Champion Hurdle heroine and stablemate Annie Power.

By way of an arresting intro I was hoping this morning to bring you exclusive news of Rich Ricci’s opinion of Davy Fitz and Brian Cody. Really. Just for the sake of it. Just by way of something different.

If the decision to re-route Vautour from the Gold Cup to the Ryanair Chase was an unpopular one, all animosity towards the horse and connections had dissipated by the time the beautifully athletic gelding jumped the final fence and strode clear up the straight to record victory at a third consecutive Festival.

The three best mares we have seen since Dawn Run, with the exception of the 1994 Champion Hurdle winner, Flakey Dove, have all been trained by Willie Mullins, namely Annie Power, Quevega and Vroum Vroum Mag.

Willie Mullins emulated his father by training a mare to win the Stan James Champion Hurdle as Annie Power blew her rivals away in style at Cheltenham, setting a new course record in the process.

Ruby, Willie. Cheltenham. Ah, sure, you know the rest.

As history suggests, it takes a mare of outstanding quality to win the Champion Hurdle.