Our star columnist Willie Mullins reflects on a Cheltenham Festival that yielded a record 10 winners and saw him crowned as the top trainer.
It was totally unbelievable, a lot of things went right.
We had our upsets like Galopin Des Champs, and Brandy Love being withdrawn at that stage of the week, things like that, but overall we had an unbelievable week.
Stattler's a lovely, relaxed staying chaser. He jumps well enough to maybe run over two and a half miles but I would imagine his career will probably take in the longer trips.
I always like to have nice novices coming through and hopefully one or two get up to the open ranks.
Sir Gerhard looks top class. Whatdeawant would probably want a longer trip and maybe a fence, he looks very good.
Sir Gerhard could be Champion Hurdle material, I think, because he has a Flat pedigree and I think he's fast enough. We're probably lucky we avoided Constitution Hill on the day.
I imagine Sir Gerhard will go to Punchestown; most of mine will go to Punchestown, at this point of time anyhow.
Energumene was very good in the conditions. Whether he needs those type of conditions to be seen at his best? But if that's it so be it. He loved Cheltenham, he loved the 22mm of rain that fell but that probably didn't suit Chacun Pour Soi. Although at the time Chacun Pour Soi appeared to be going very well and appeared to have his mojo back so it was really disappointing. I was hugely disappointed when he made that mistake. Possibly at this stage of his career it's going to be hard for him to get any better or even get back to his best but there we are.
It was a huge performance from Facile Vega considering where Patrick found himself early on in the race, towards the middle of the race and even coming down the hill, right in the middle of them with all that muck and water and dirt flying back in his face, that's very hard on horses.
And yet he had the ability to come through all that and still beat off American Mike who looks to be a top-class horse.
James's Gate ran a cracker as well. A couple of mine didn't fire on the day but Seabank Bistro ran very well, he's a horse that has a lot of maturing to do.
I think the whole occasion just might have got to Redemption Day. Paul (Townend) said at the start he was very buzzy and I think the whole thing got to him. Maybe he missed having that second run at the Dublin Racing Festival which might have given him a bit more experience but whether it was lack of experience or temperament I'm not sure.
Galopin Des Champs was doing more than I thought he could do in relation to Bob Olinger. It was an extraordinary performance, a shade unlucky, but we came home happy enough with a sound horse and a sound jockey and we live to fight another day with the promise of a lot more exciting things ahead of us.
It must have been very tough on Paul going out on Allaho knowing that he had to give the horse a similar ride. Everything going well and coming down to the last, I don't know how he must have felt but he went into it, jumped it like you normally would.
A huge credit to Paul because he's just very cool in those situations and he didn't let the previous fall on Galopin Des Champs affect him. He went and did what had to be done but it must have been a huge pressure on him. That's what we see in Paul every day, when people think he's under huge pressure, he just comes out and does what he needs to do.
Another great win for Cheveley Park who went on to be the leading owners when A Plus Tard won the Gold Cup; a tremendous victory for them.
Janidil was always going to be a reserve behind Allaho, I suppose, and he lived up to that. He ran a cracker, plenty more races to be won with him at the top level.
Vauban winning the Triumph Hurdle was hopefully a foretaste of his ability. Normally the Triumph Hurdle is the Derby for juvenile hurdlers and that's the top of their career but with this fellow's inexperience and his light racing campaign, it could be the start of the career. He's going to make into a fantastic dual-purpose horse. We'll mix it between hurdles and Flat racing with him.
We're hoping he'll make an Ebor horse or maybe a Melbourne Cup horse, I think that's where we'd like to go. Rich (Ricci) has had a second in a Melbourne Cup and would probably like to have a horse good enough to go and have another crack at it.
State Man is another horse we think is going to make into a graded horse. We left him in the Supreme Novices' Hurdle right into the last minute just in case anything happened to one of our others there but Paul was always very keen to ride him in the County, favouring that handicap mark after his fall at Leopardstown.
It was great to get a winner for Marie and Joe Donnelly, great patrons of the yard.
It was always going to be hard for Minella Cocooner because of his style of racing, he's very free and he's a very light-framed horse but he ran a great race and I was really delighted with his run.
The Nice Guy probably got the run of the race and Sean O'Keeffe gave The Nice Guy a copybook ride for Malcolm Denmark who hadn't been in the winner's enclosure for 22 years since Monsignor. A lot of praise must go to Sean, just riding his second winner at Cheltenham and his first Grade One, a rider who is progressing beautifully through the ranks with his nice, quiet style and level head.
Al Boum Photo ran a great race, probably where he is now at this stage of his career so we were very happy.
Asterion Forlonge is one that ran a great race but unfortunately came back lame so that is probably why he just faded when he did. So a little disappointing but hopefully he'll be back next season.
I was sort of disappointed initially after the race with how he faded but subsequently he was found to be lame and that must have affected him. We don't know when that happened during the race but probably just when he faded so he was very brave to even finish the race.
Billaway can be very unenergetic, I suppose, so we put cheekpieces on him and yet he was still unenergetic in giving Patrick (Mullins) a hand. However, he has it in the tank and when Patrick felt him giving him that big jump at the third-last he knew there was plenty more in there, so it was just a matter of guiding him over the last couple.
He just doesn't like jumping even though he has a super jump in him. Once he got him on the flat, got him balanced and got him in a straight line he just ate up the ground to overtake Barry O'Neill's horse for what possibly could be one of the rides of the week. There were a lot of fantastic rides in the week but he's up there with most of them, anyhow.
John Turner really enjoys his racing, he mapped out this trophy four years ago when we bought this horse off Tracey Gilmour who used to be my head girl and looked after Florida Pearl. It took three years to finally manage it, two seconds and a win.
I'm really looking forward to John filling up this cup! His bank balance will take a bit of a dent by the time the size of this cup will be filled!
Elimay's another that, like Billaway, just doesn't take on her fences when you leave her, she would prefer to go in and pop, so the application of cheekpieces have been a big help. But I think Mark Walsh deserves kudos for this, once again he got her around, got her straightened up and knew where the winning post was, he timed his run perfectly.
It was just different, fantastic to have the crowds back, and everyone was in such good form, everyone wanted to be back at the Festival enjoying it and I think it was a hugely successful Festival.
A lot of praise must go to Ian Renton and his team at Cheltenham for producing fabulous racing facilities and the track in great order.
I think criticism of the clerk was very hard. They only watered the straight and the downhill section approaching the third-last, the whole track wasn't watered which I think a lot of people didn't know; 22mm rain in a few hours, very few tracks can take that and the times didn't suggest the track was heavy or anything like that even though there was a lot of water splashing around the top. The times were reasonable enough.
We'll regroup now and try and point them in the right direction for Aintree, Fairyhouse and Punchestown.