Willie Mullins: ‘It was a huge performance after the preparation she had’

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.

Dawn Run, trained by Paddy Mullins, won the race back in 1984 and famously went on the win the Gold Cup two years later.

That feat means Dawn Run is rightly regarded as the best National Hunt mare of all time — but Annie Power is quickly approaching that sort of status herself, although the salient point of the race was that she was only rerouted to the championship event after her stablemate, last year’s winner Faugheen, was ruled out through injury.