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Gold Cup perennial The Dikler a true giant in every sense
At the end of October Willie Mullins confided that he was struck by the ring of truth in a phrase this column employed about "the potholed road to the jumps crown" in particular and, implicitly, the festival as a whole.
Since then, in a catalogue of misfortune you would not wish on anyone, the great man's horses have hardly left a pothole unexplored.
But Mullins is master of morale, with staff to die for. His team might be depleted but he will be burning with determination to make the best of a hand shorn of aces and there was plenty of veiled warning in Ruby Walsh's comment to me on Friday that "I still think we have got plenty of good horses".
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