NOW the dust has settled on an astonishing Cheltenham Festival it’s time to pick over the bones of a hugely enjoyable four days littered with stunning performances.

Performance of the week

The most impressive came in the very first race with Constitution Hill’s scintillating demolition of what looked beforehand like a stellar Supreme Novices’ Hurdle line-up.

It thrust him to the top of next year’s Champion Hurdle betting despite Nicky Henderson sending his two recent winners of the Festival’s traditional opener – Altior and Shishkin – straight over fences.

Constitution Hill’s 22-length romp was visually very impressive and there’s no doubting his potential.

After all, it was only his third start over hurdles and he broke the course record – no mean feat at a track that hosts the very best 2m hurdle races.

It obviously pointed to the ground being decent and also underlined the strong pace set by Dysart Dynamo and, to a lesser extent, Jonbon.

Constitution Hill sat third just behind the strong gallop and sauntered clear of his stablemate Jonbon after Dysart Dynamo took a tumble three from home when still travelling ok on the front end.

This is clearly a high-class horse and the 2m hurdling division has lacked depth, especially among the British-trained performers, for a good while.

Unibet Champion Hurdle & Arkle

Later in the afternoon Honeysuckle stretched her unbeaten record to 16 races when winning her second successive Unibet Champion Hurdle.

She might not have been so devastating, but she never looked like losing her crown with Rachael Blackmore adopting a safety-first approach, often staying out of trouble on the outside.

Given she has never been beaten and has already twice proven she is up to winning the Unibet Champion Hurdle, it surprised me the bookies chalked Honeysuckle up as 3-1 second favourite to join the greats as a three-time winner of hurdling’s top prize behind Constitution Hill.

Sandwiched between the two races was the Arkle Trophy. It saw Edwardstone put in a very similar performance to Honeysuckle in that he was always in control and never looked like failing to add a third Grade 1 chase to his haul.

Given the manner of the performance and the excellent record of Arkle winners in the next year’s Champion Chase, to see Alan King’s star only fifth best at 10-1 in the betting for next year’s 2m chase crown raised my eyebrows a little.

The decent ground was perfect for him and he wouldn’t have wanted to have raced on the ground the Festival runners were faced with on Wednesday.

Disappointments of the week

That Wednesday weather was wheeled out as the excuse for Shishkin’s bitterly-disappointing effort when pulled up in the Queen Mother Champion Chase won by old rival Energumene.

Nicky Henderson’s dual Festival winner was never going even approaching the first fence and it’s entirely possible another reason will come to light later down the line.

Personally, I’ve always thought Shishkin would end up over further and he might well be worth a shot at next season’s King George around Kempton on Boxing Day. If that happens and he goes well it would surely put the kybosh on any more races over 2m.

Energumene has an almost flawless record but this year’s Champion Chase clearly fell apart and most of his wins have come in extremely uncompetitive races.

Much like the Unibet Champion Hurdle contenders, the 2m chase division has been in need of some fresh blood and Edwardstone, although the same age as Energumene as an eight-year-old, looks capable of shaking it all up a bit.

With Paul Nicholls, who had less Festival runners than Willie Mullins had winners, pulling out Bravemansgame due to the ground it left a rather below-par Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase.

L’Homme Presse confirmed his stamina for 3m on testing ground with a smooth display but had runner-up Ahoy Senor jumped even moderately he would have given him a bit to think about.

L’Homme Presse has come a long way in a short space of time since arriving from France and more improvement is possible but the bare form didn’t make him a 7-1 third favourite for next year’s Gold Cup in my book.

Luckiest winner of the week

The meetings other Grade 1 novices’ chase, the Turners, saw Bob Olinger run out an incredibly lucky winner.

I wasn’t as critical of his jumping as some analysts I’ve seen. He’s nowhere near as extravagant as Galopin Des Champs, whose last-fence fall handed him the race, but he is efficient enough.

A mistake four from put him on the back foot and I didn’t think he looked a happy horse from that point so maybe there might have been a reason why he looked so tired in coming home virtually alone.

It was interesting to hear Mullins talking about potentially dropping Galopin Des Champs back in trip from 2m4f considering he was already proven over 3m. That sort of dampens the attraction of his Gold Cup claims unless it was some kind of strange game of poker from the Irish champion trainer.

The Cheltenham Gold Cup

The Gold Cup itself looked an open affair but A Plus Tard made a mockery of that opinion when storming clear on his favoured drying ground to beat last year’s winner Minella Indo by 15 lengths.

It was the biggest winning distance since Master Oats slogged through heavy ground to win the Festival’s most-coveted prize 27 years earlier.

He must have been some certainty in the novices’ handicap chase, no longer run at the Festival, that he landed three years ago.

This was a special performance – not least because Blackmore became the first female jockey to win the Gold Cup – and it was a little surprising that he wasn’t chalked up shorter than the 4-1 on offer to retain his crown next year.

Maybe, it’s because he’s been around for a good while, although he’s only an eight-year-old, so far from ancient. There is always the worry that, as a French-bred who has been on the go for more than four years, that he might start to go downhill but the evidence to date is clearly to the contrary.

Best of the rest

Other notable performances during the fabulous four days came from easy NH Chase winner Stattler, Champion Bumper hero Facile Vega, effortless Ryanair Chase scorer Allaho and course specialist Coole Cody in the Plate.

Danny Mullins again showed how good he is when giving Flooring Porter another superb ride to land back-to-back victories in the Stayers’ Hurdle and Vauban looked a very smart juvenile when overcoming a slow jump at the last to land the Triumph Hurdle.

Vauban was one of an incredible five winners for Mullins on the final day and his County Hurdle winner State Man looked way better than a handicapper. The Irish champion trainer ended the week with a record ten winners.

It was a far cry from when I backed him to be the Festival’s top trainer plenty of years ago when he failed to register a single success. Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to be ahead of your time.