Serious potential makes Beware The Bear a major threat

1.30 Sky Bet Supreme Novices' Hurdle 2m½f

He was 2-5 to be top trainer at the meeting in 2014, 2-9 in 2015 and last year we could have been tempted by anything from 1-14 to 1-33. Entering the 2017 Cheltenham Festival, however, Willie Mullins is 4-6. Almost incredibly he is only second (to Gordon Elliott) in the Irish trainers’ table.

This story is not quite on the scale of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire but his fortunes have a huge bearing on events this week and, as is customary, they receive an early test with a longstanding favourite for the Supreme Novices’.