Britain v Ireland tribalism at the festival helps no-one - it's time to consign the ludicrous Prestbury Cup to history

With British jump racing once again left in a state of soul-searching – as has now become traditional following the Cheltenham Festival – no-one has pointed to the obvious missing link as to why Irish trainers were able to dominate again: where was Britain's Prestbury Cup team captain?

For those unfortunate enough to remember, there were, for several years in the late 2010s, a succession of sporting celebrities rolled out to spearhead the festival teams of Britain and Ireland.

As Cheltenham attempted to add more bells and whistles to an event which was approaching the peak of its popularity, the racecourse introduced the wholly unnecessary and faintly ridiculous notion of former England cricketer Phil Tufnell supposedly captaining the likes of Paul Nicholls and Nicky Henderson against Willie Mullins, Gordon Elliott and their colleagues from Ireland, who were in turn captained by figures such as the 1997 snooker world champion Ken Doherty.