Despite having lost Faugheen, Min and Annie Power from his Cheltenham Festival team, owner Rich Ricci still has the hottest favourite of the week in Douvan in the Champion Chase.

Unbeaten since joining Willie Mullins, Douvan put the finishing touches to his Queen Mother Champion Chase preparations with a flawless display in the Tied Cottage at Punchestown.

"When that happens (injuries) you've got to ask yourself some hard questions. Does this happen to everybody or is it just our run of bad luck?" Ricci blogged for RTE Racing.

"For now we still have plenty to look forward to and I'll be spending the next few weeks trying to figure out with Willie the best races for my horses at Cheltenham.

"Douvan will hopefully lead the team and obviously goes there with a big shout. But there are no shoo-ins at Cheltenham and even though we don't know yet who will take him on, I think for a number of reasons he will face the biggest test of his career there.

"It's the instinct of many that his least impressive performances have been at Cheltenham. That might sound harsh given how impressive he was in the Supreme Novices' and the Arkle, but he has set the bar pretty high with everything he has done.

"I don't know if those arguments are right and whether the track or the likely good ground take a percentage from him, but either way you couldn't be anything but incredibly excited about him lining up next month."

One of his main rivals will miss the race as Gary Moore annonced that Ar Mad will not make the Festival.

On his Betway blog he said: "We took the decision last week to take Ar Mad out of the Ascot Chase on Saturday week after his little setback.

Anyway, even though he is coming along nicely, the Cheltenham Festival is going to come too soon and it looks almost certain that we will head straight to Aintree or Punchestown instead.

There is simply no point rushing him back too quickly and you just can’t go to Cheltenham undercooked."

It’s a shame, but by giving ourselves that little bit more time, he will be spot on for one of those other targets.