He’s the right horse – I could see him winning a big race in the Champion Hurdle”

In 2017 and 2018, he topped the charts at back-to-back Cheltenham Festivals. Since Nicky Henderson’s seven-winner haul in 2012, he has been the only trainer able to stop Mullins from hitting number one. Last year, Elliott came away with three winners – Jazzy Matty, Delta Work, and Sire Du Berlais – but left disappointed.

It wasn’t that his horses ran badly, just that he hit more crossbars than Darwin Nunez over the course of the week. He was left wondering what might have been had his luck been better.