Trainer Kerry Lee shows off the prize won by Kylemore Lough at Fairyhouse© Photo Healy Racing
The Easter Sunday Grade 1 features at Fairyhouse provided a timely reminder that the sun does actually come up the day after Cheltenham. Jer's Girl and Kylemore Lough secured top-flight honours in style, providing connections with lucrative dividends for not succumbing to the festival's overarching charms. That neither is likely to head their respective championship divisions come the end of the season won't impact in the slightest on their newly acquired Grade 1 status.
If the argument that Cheltenham's expanding programme has diluted some of its novice events in particular, then Jer's Girl and Kylemore Lough highlighted how everyone's eagerness to compete there can make for a consequent dilution of other races too. It simply requires cool heads to rein in that enthusiasm during the frenzied run-in to the Cotswolds extravaganza.
Arguing that there's nothing like a Cheltenham winner is all very well but if the old adage about keeping yourself in the best of company, and your horse in the worst, is strictly applied then both the Irish Stallion Farms Mares Novice Hurdle and the Ryanair Gold Cup were ripe for plucking in a calendar which saw Easter fall practically on top of Cheltenham this year.
So all credit to Gavin Cromwell and Kerry Lee for keeping their powder dry and exploiting top-flight opportunities that will certainly define their horse's careers, and possibly their own too, although it's not difficult to imagine they could prove merely the start of better things to come.
Certainly the days when Cromwell could be most easily identified through his evocative surname are long gone. For a man who came within an ace of packing in training completely in order to concentrate on his job as a farrier, the last few seasons - which also include an Irish Cambridgeshire win with Sretaw - are a credit to his persistence as well as his ability to extract the best out of mostly cheaply bought or bred material.
Having a Grade 1 winner racing in the colours of one of the National Hunt game's most powerful owners can but add to a reputation for intelligent placing which Jer's Girl has only enhanced. There were a handful of options for her at Cheltenham and the temptation must have been to join in the annual invasion. Instead the judgement call to keep her for a softer option paid off in spades.
The International Federation of Horseracing Authorities has announced new threshold limits on cobalt, the substance likened to EPO which has been at the centre of ructions in Australian racing, including a six month suspension for Black Caviar's trainer Peter Moody who has announced his retirement on the back of breaching the rules. The new limits come into play this week.
The BHA announced this last week, with its chief veterinary officer declaring "the current available evidence shows that British racing does not have an issue with the use of cobalt as a doping substance" and that there is no evidence of a culture of the substance being used inappropriately. It’s an attitude officially echoed in Ireland.
And it may very well be the case in both jurisdictions, although the danger of assuming the "current available evidence" is correct has lurked behind every doping scandal, in every sport, everywhere.
By definition those fighting the doping battle are always playing catch-up, something that realigning the cobalt threshold implicitly acknowledges. Maria Sharapova was taking meldonium for a decade and broke no rules. It takes a major leap of credulity to assume the misuse of cobalt can be an exclusively Aussie phenomenon. "The current available evidence shows that British Racing does not have an issue with the use of cobalt as a doping substance," the BHA's chief veterinary officer Jenny Hall said.
It was noteworthy in Timeform's Racehorses of 2015 Annual that the noted handicapping organisation is prepared to acknowledge the idea of disqualifying horses whose jockeys have broken the whip rules isn't some barking notion propagated by lentil-cudding lefties with no respect for punters.
"The stewards should be given the ultimate power - which they do not have at present - to disqualify horses in extreme cases of whip abuse as, for example, when Frankie Dettori struck Rewilding 24 times in the last two furlongs of the 2011 Prince of Wales's Stakes," Timeform argues.
If that case was a notable example of a 'win at all costs' ride then it was by no means unique. It also introduces the problem of officially defining an extreme case, and what distinctions, if any, might be made for vagaries such as race distance or even the nature of flat racing against National Hunt.
But while only acknowledging logic, Timeform's assertion is not insignificant given its history of influencing the racing agenda.
It's a generalisation obviously but perhaps the most notable reaction to Derek McGrath's appointment as chief executive of the new Curragh company overseeing the €65 million redevelopment of Irish racing's HQ was 'Derek Who?' And in as close-knit an environment as racing that makes a refreshing change.
The man who can boast five international rugby caps for Ireland has an impressive administrative pedigree in European rugby where his brief often consisted of keeping competing interests from getting stuck into each other. The words 'frying' 'fire' and 'pan' come to mind. But those rugby instincts could come in handy.
And talking of Grade/Group 1's, not to mention colossal prizemoney, there was plenty of both on offer at Meydan where California Chrome provided the headline perfect World Cup result.
But it is remarkable on the back of over two decades now how the most valuable card in global racing is still a marginal event in terms of grabbing the public imagination in this part of the world. No doubt a lot of definitive conclusions can be drawn from that, one of them perhaps being how throwing prizemoney at something is a long way from always being the best solution.
