Five things we learned last week in the build-up to the festival

The Yanworth chasing experiment is over - for now

Just when it looked like Yanworth was getting somewhere as a chaser after he won the Dipper on New Year's Day, connections seemed to realise how winnable the Stayers' Hurdle might be. This week, with the two 3m options reportedly the two left on the table, it was announced that last year's Aintree Hurdle winner would contest the Stayers'.

It is easy to see why a horse whose jumping over fences has been patchy would be better suited to taking on Supasundae and Sam Spinner rather than Monalee and Presenting Percy. We can now return to last year's conundrum over Yanworth: can his championship talent deliver a championship race?

But King's is more than a one-horse raid

Yanworth's trainer Alan King has at least one other live chance to aim at the festival after Redicean bolted up in the Adonis, a traditionally strong trial for the Triumph Hurdle and a race King has now won four times. That brings him level with Paul Nicholls and Nicky Henderson as the race's most successful trainer.

King has twice won the Triumph Hurdle with Penzance and Katchit and he had no qualms about comparing his latest Adonis winner with those two, likening the slick Redicean to Penzance rather than the doughty scrapper Katchit, who went on to take the Champion Hurdle.

Cue Card: will run in the Ryanair on his final run at Cheltenham

Card sets his final flight

There is going to be a lot of sentiment in the build-up to the Ryanair, as it was announced that Cue Card, current holder of the title of The Peoples' Horse, will run in that race rather make a third bid for the Gold Cup in his farewell season.

Somewhat ironically, this was very much a hard-headed decision. Cue Card has essentially always been a 2m4f horse that stayed or a speedy three-miler, depending on what the occasion calls for. The Ryanair is well suited to one of those roles, the Gold Cup is not so much and, while he has never gone up the hill after 3m2f, he has all the course form one could wish for when it comes to the shorter race.

The Hollywood ending has been ruled out, but the chances of an emotional final Cheltenham win for Cue Card at his seventh festival just got that little bit more likely.

No Ultima hat-trick

Un Temps Pour Tout: winner of the last two renewals of the Ultima Handicap Chase is not entered this yearCredit: Mark Cranham

Un Temps Pour Tout, winner of the last two renewals of the Ultima Handicap Chase, was not among the entries received for that race and nor was Vieux Lion Rouge, who runs in the same silks and looked a similarly easy fit for the race.

David Pipe's entries in the Ultima do not immediately catch the eye, but he normally has one or two plates spinning for the festival handicaps and King's Socks (Festival Plate), Vaniteux (Grand Annual) and Moon Racer (Coral Cup/County Hurdle) look among the likelier candidates from the yard among the initial entries.

The chances of testing ground are ever slimmer

With cold weather due to arrive in Britain this week, Ladbrokes' PR machine spotted a gap and offered 16-1 about a day's action at Cheltenham being lost to the weather. That looks pretty derisory, in truth.

The pressure system sitting over Britain in the next week or so lessens the chances of heavy rain and reduces the likelihood of this year's Cheltenham Festival starting on soft ground or worse.

Of course there is plenty of time for that to change, as any clerk of the course will tell you, but with every passing day the probability of heavy rain causing the ground to turn testing diminishes, little by little.

If you are interested in this, you might also like:

Pietro Innocenzi's essential betting tips for the Cheltenham Festival

Beware the Irish banker: five good things who failed to fire at the festival

Rating the bankers – the festival favourites the figures suggest we should back