AS always, comparisons will be made between this year’s Cheltenham winners and former champions.

It was almost 60 years ago, in August 1960, that two of the very best, Arkle and Flyingbolt were sold at the same Goffs sale. Most racegoers are more familiar with Arkle than with Flyingbolt, but the latter was an exceptional horse and today’s Grade 3 chase in Navan is named after him.

Consigned by Rathmore Stud, he was bought for 490gns by Major George Ponsonby on behalf of Mrs T.G. Wilkinson, who named him on the basis of his sire and dam, Airborne and Eastlock. His Cheltenham victories came in the 1964 Gloucestershire (Supreme Novices’) Hurdle, the 1965 Cotswold Chase (now named after Arkle), and the 1966 Champion Chase.

On the latter occasion Flyingbolt went off favourite 24 hours later for the Champion Hurdle, only to finish third to Salmon Spray.

Some 46 years would pass before another horse would win three different races at three consecutive Cheltenham Festivals.

When Bobs Worth followed up his victories in the Albert Bartlett and the RSA Chase by winning the 2013 Gold Cup, he never really earnt the recognition that this rare treble merited.

As a yearling, Bobs Worth was actually consigned, like Flyingbolt, under the Molonys’ Rathmore Stud banner, and was bought by his subsequent rider Barry Geraghty.

Having failed to sell him, Geraghty sold him as a four-year-old at Doncaster to Highflyer and Nicky Henderson.

Altior has also emulated Flyingbolt (in the same three races) but I cannot think of any horse in line for that rare achievement in 2020.