Harrington, Andrews and the Queen among women celebrating Cheltenham 2017

1 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle hero Labaik once ran on the beach at Laytown – although this is rather overstating the case. When he joined Gordon Elliott from Owen Burrows in 2016, the winless five-year-old came with a Government Health Warning, having refused to race on his final start when 5-4 favourite at Lingfield. Sent to the seaside venue that September for a modest maiden, he once again took no meaningful part in the action, only to mend his ways and win on his first two hurdles starts, then effectively refuse to race thrice more - avoiding a ban by the skin of his teeth when consenting to complete the course at Naas some 100 lengths behind the winner. In the opener at Cheltenham, however – galvanised by either the sound of a long whip being cracked at the start or by the roar of the crowd, depending on your favoured theory – he jumped off without a moment’s recalcitrance and won in style. At last, the RR alongside his name stood for Rolls-Royce rather than refused to race.

2 Labaik's jockey Jack Kennedy is the first 17-year-old to ride a Cheltenham Festival winner since Sam Twiston-Davies triumphed on Baby Run in the 2010 Foxhunter Chase. Twiston-Davies was 171 days younger than Kennedy. In days gone by, jockeys started riding much younger than is legally permitted now, and age records were set that are now unassailable.

3 When Cause Of Causes won the Glenfarclas Cross Country Chase, he became the fifth horse to win three different chases at the festival. The nine-year-old had won the National Hunt Chase in 2015 and last year’s Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Handicap Chase before this week’s success, taking his chase record to three from four at the meeting, having finished second in the 2014 Kim Muir. He joins 1920s winner Dudley, war time runner Medoc, Gold Cup hero Silver Fame and fellow Kim Muir winner Arctic Gold in achieving the feat.