It wasn’t quite enough to beat his record of 19 winners set in 2021 but Willie Mullins was still utterly dominant at this year’s Punchestown Festival with a closing haul of 17.

Over the course of the five days he saddled 91 runners and emerged with €1,866,850 in prize money. Barring Mullins and Elliott, no other trainer collected as much prize money for the entire season.

With eight of his winners at odds-on and only one bigger than 5/1, there weren’t many surprises when it came to the Closutton contingent, other than defeat for Galopin Des Champs in the Ladbrokes Punchestown Gold Cup.

As for Paul Townend, his more selective approach this week appeared to serve him well. He didn’t ride in several handicap chases and probably skipped a valuable handicap hurdle winner on Tuesday with Bialystok, but there’s little doubt he was operating at the top of his game when it came to the Grade 1 prizes.

Townend and Mullins emerged with nine of the 12 top-level prizes, while Mullins had the runner-up in the other three races. Quite the week’s work.

Despite it probably going slightly under the radar prior to the Punchestown Festival, but the 2022/23 season has been a standout one for J.J. Slevin.

Even before his festival four-timer, the Wexford native had comfortably beaten his previous best domestic tally of 33 winners in a single season. Victory on Brideswell Lad on Saturday brought his latest seasonal haul to 44.

Slevin’s link-up with the Mulryan family and Martin Brassil has reaped dividends, as evidenced by their Punchestown Gold Cup triumph with Fastorslow, but there have also been Grade 1 wins for Joseph O’Brien with Banbridge in the Manifesto Novices’ Chase at Aintree and Home By The Lee in the Jack de Bromhead Christmas Hurdle at Leopardstown.

Fakir D’Oudairies popped up with a Grade 2 win in the Horse & Jockey Hotel Chase, Home By The Lee also landed the Grade 2 Lismullen Hurdle and Busselton capped a memorable Listowel Harvest Festival for the pair when winning the Guinness Kerry National just a couple of days on from a Liam Healy Memorial Lartigue Hurdle success with Prairie Dancer.

An intelligent and thoroughly likeable operator, it’s terrific to see his persistent efforts being rewarded.

They say variety is the spice of life and we were certainly given a taste of different methods and routes to the winner’s enclosure over the past week at Punchestown.

We have become accustomed to some high-profile National Hunt horses being campaigned particularly conservatively, and that strategy can clearly pay off with certain types of runners.

However, it was refreshing to see how being bold delivered big results for some.

Emmet Mullins took Grade 1 festival winner Feronily from a point-to-point to a bumper, novice hurdle, senior graded chase and top-level novice chase in the space of five and a half months, and Fastorslow defied being 26lb wrong at the weights when lowering the colours of Galopin Des Champs in the Punchestown Gold Cup.

It’s believed A Dream To Share became the first horse to win five bumpers since the Alan Swinbank-trained Turbo Linn in 2006/07, a feat we likely won’t see repeated for some time to come.

Connections of the previous week’s Scottish Champion Hurdle second and third were rewarded for turning out quickly at the Kildare venue.

Ayr runner-up Colonel Mustard picked up €30,000 for finishing an excellent third to State Man in the Paddy Power Champion Hurdle and third-placed Anna Bunina earned €25,000, as well as Grade 1 blacktype, for claiming second in the Coolmore Irish EBF Mares Champion Hurdle.

Hats off to those willing to roll the dice.