Dunguib: bumper star and top novice hurdler for whom it all went wrong

The 2009 Cheltenham Festival took place against the backdrop of a fast-developing Irish economic crisis. National morale was in retreat.

Yet Irish punters headed across the water with habitual optimism. Hopes were particularly high for the Champion Bumper.

Race-specialist Willie Mullins supplied eight of the 24 runners, although the market was dominated by two other Irish runners, the Dermot Weld-trained Rite Of Passage, an unbeaten winner of bumpers at Galway the previous August and at Naas in February, and Dunguib, successful in two of his three starts.