Punters have this card backwards - and French Dynamite is the wrong favourite

Does nobody pay attention to ten-year trends any more? If there's one major British jumps race in which the home team still have a really strong record it's the Paddy Power Gold Cup, the highlight of a packed and challenging Cheltenham card on Saturday.

Incredibly, and it's hard to know why it should be true, this race has been won by an Irish raider on just one occasion since 1980. If 40-year trends are your thing, local trainer Susan Nock has as strong a record as an entire, proud nation of horse-lovers.

I can only think there must be plenty of alternative races at home for the kind of horse needed to come over and bag such a prize. For whatever reason, the Mackeson, as it used to be known, has not fired the imagination of Irish racing. Fair enough.