Mullins and Elliott power struggle at centre of strong raiding party

For 71 years, ever since Tom Dreaper won the first post-war Cheltenham Gold Cup with Prince Regent and Charlie Rogers stole the show with a select team of horses for Dorothy Paget, the Cheltenham Festival has served as the defining event of the jump racing year in Ireland, as much as in the host country.

The Irish challenge is rooted in decades of accumulated tradition, embracing a notion of rivalry that ignores all the blurred lines involving where a particular horse is bred, or the nationality of its owner, to focus on the single criterion of where the horse is trained. Many Irish festival veterans will recall the lean times of the late 1980s. Thirty years ago, when Galmoy averted a whitewash by winning the Stayers' Hurdle, it was regarded as poor consolation that Irish-breds won ten of the 18 races at the meeting.

Fortunes have fluctuated, cycles have come and gone. It was never worse for the visitors than in the Galmoy era. In 1988 he was again the sole winner. When he was beaten by Rustle the following year, the Irish drew a blank for the first time since travel restrictions ruled out participation in 1945.