It’s easy being green: Ireland ready to rout Britain again at Cheltenham

Irish dominance of the Festival shows no signs of abating, with only two favourites at this year’s event stabled in British yards

HUGE LOSS: Nico de Boinville celebrates on Constitution Hill, but the hotpot misses out this week for trainer Nicky Henderson has announced.

IF England’s rugby players felt like long shots before their shock win against their all-conquering Irish counterparts at Twickenham, they might have spared a thought for Britain’s National Hunt trainers approaching Tuesday’s start of the Cheltenham Festival.

There are 28 races at the showpiece event of the jumping season and only two favourites – for the Plate Handicap Chase on Thursday and the Triumph Hurdle the following afternoon – are stabled in British yards. As if that were not ominous enough for the home side, Nicky Henderson – the only British trainer to put up anything more than token resistance to the annual Irish invasion in recent years – goes into the meeting with Constitution Hill, his stable star, on the sidelines and the rest of his string a long way short of its usual form.