All Mullins for now - but Blackmore and De Bromhead in good shape for Cheltenham

Having dedicated last week's column to going concerns that had dissuaded connections of various horses from running at the Dublin Racing Festival, the first point of business is to applaud the officials on how fine a job they did in providing safe winter ground at Leopardstown.

A timely drop of rain helped to crown it, but the consensus even before that was clerk of the course Lorcan Wyer and the team at the track had done enough. Given the plunge in five-day entries, the final declarations ultimately held up well, and the sincere hope now would be that this will no longer be a limiting factor for either the DRF or the Christmas festival.

To that end, the comments of Jane Hedley, Leopardstown's newly appointed racing and operations manager, were particularly encouraging on Monday.