Two fallen stars in Honeysuckle and Shishkin - but I’m still positive about one

After the slow-burn of November came an explosion of meaningful jump racing this weekend and thank goodness we all have that end-of-term focal point of the Cheltenham Festival to help set some of the performances in context.

Quite a few horses advanced their claims to glory in March but a couple of really big names did not make the impressive reappearances we expected, most notably Honeysuckle, beaten for the first time in the Hatton's Grace.

There seemed to be a fair bit of woe mixed in with the immediate reaction but that hardly seems appropriate. An eight-year-old mare who runs a close third in a hotly contested open Grade 1 on her seasonal reappearance has achieved something worthwhile, however high expectations might have been.