Barry Connell: 'I'm not normally one to bang the drum but I think we have the best horse'

The question is as insensitive as asking a doting parent to choose a favourite child, but Barry Connell still remains polite and patient.

"If there was only one novice hurdle contested at the Cheltenham Festival and run on good to soft over two miles and two furlongs, which of the two you train, Marine Nationale and Good Land, would you ride in the race?"

Connell is blessed, cursed even, with a relentlessly active mind and the cogs can almost be heard turning as he gives this conundrum his usual thoughtful consideration.