Heroes and villains - Honeysuckle looking for the old one-two to knock out young pretenders

A year ago Honeysuckle and Rachael Blackmore marched on Leopardstown and captivated an adoring public desperate to make up for time lost during the wretched pandemic.

They were serenaded down to the start, danced to a third Irish Champion Hurdle and then surfed back into the Dublin venue’s winner’s enclosure on a wave of euphoria. It was epic.

Leopardstown has wrapped some of the game’s most popular stars in a warm embrace over the years, crowd-pleasers like Istabraq, Best Mate, Beef Or Salmon, Sea The Stars and Hurricane Fly all provoking raucous receptions. Still, I’m not sure the old place had ever been moved to such a gleeful and prolonged outpouring of emotion as this day 12 months ago, when a duo who in the interim had conjured some historic feats to a tumbleweed backdrop got the din of appreciation they deserved. It felt like it was written, same as it did when they delivered again in similarly restorative circumstances in the Cotswolds the following month.