Davy Russell was a shadow of himself after Michael O'Leary's bizarre and graceless intervention

If the 2023 Cheltenham Festival turns out to be the last act of Davy Russell’s long and illustrious career, it was not the encore a rider of his ilk deserved. 

And that’s not because results didn’t go his way. Or at least it’s not in as much as the circus that preceded the actual racing undermined him before he ever threw his leg over a horse in anger. 

Michael O’Leary knows the power his words carry and he has a history of deploying them to devastating effect. Quite why he felt it necessary to launch such a destructive grenade on to Russell’s lap on the eve of such a seismic week is hard to fathom.