Sire power: the names to watch at the Cheltenham Festival

King’s Theatre’s effect on the Cheltenham Festival goes back to whatever you might regard as the good old days, be that when the meeting was spread over just three afternoons, or when the price of a pint was closer to £3 than £7.

His festival runners are recorded as far back as 2002 and track through five years later to the first, easier and rather less regularly recalled, victory for Wichita Lineman and AP McCoy in what is now the Albert Bartlett.