Gigginstown always looking to make right moves in harsh jumping landscape

Sunday's Navan card started with a Gigginstown clean sweep in a 2m4f maiden hurdle, with the first five led home by the Gordon Elliott-trained Defi Bleu. Later, Elliott's well-publicised bid to win the Troytown Handicap Chase for the fifth consecutive year was derailed when the best of his 11 runners managed only fifth behind Gigginstown's Noel Meade-trained five-year-old Tout Est Permis.

To steal a line from Gary O'Brien of At The Races, Gigginstown's first-five feat was "not exactly Michael Dickinson and Cheltenham 1983". But even if it hardly meant much to an owner whose ambitions are almost wholly geared towards winning Grade 1s, it should not be dismissed as an irrelevant curiosity either, since it is indicative of massive in-depth strength among Gigginstown-owned youngsters.

Besides, if you delve below the surface, you get an insight into how Gigginstown have gradually refined their strategy, and an idea of how they have consolidated a grip on the Irish scene. With just over 150 winners in each of the past two seasons, and 73 already notched up in the current campaign, they are getting a lot of things right.