Michael O’Leary doesn’t strike me as a man who many people say thank you to.
Even when Ryanair get to play their fanfare for landing on time there are cynics aboard every plane who claim the forecast flight time was the greatest work of fiction since Charles Dickens last laid down his goose quill pen, allowing the budget airline team vital wiggle room.
But today I say thank you to Michael, his brother Eddie, Gordon Elliott and everyone else who contributed to the decision to run Brighterdaysahead in the Unibet Champion Hurdle.
Those in the know have been tapping their noses for weeks now. Don't panic they said, she's bound for the blue riband. But with the Mares’ Hurdle sitting there as a potential penalty kick, the rest of us still had the fear factor.
And when Elliott told the assembled media at a Jockey Club press event last month that the right race for Brighterdaysahead on day one of the Cheltenham Festival was the one she was most likely to win, an alarm bell rang.
That would of course be the mares’ but all along the actual 'right race' for the Gigginstown star was the Champion. And the Champion is where she goes.
If she hadn’t, the pressure to brandish the expulsion tool to her alternative or at least make the conditions sufficiently unattractive to those who have a genuine Grade One star on their hands, would have reached fever pitch.
But that angry mob with their torches ablaze can return home, myself included.
Because if you were ever going to roll the dice in the big one with a horse like Brighterdaysahead then it’s next week.
She arrives at Cheltenham three from three this season, her 30-length demolition of Winter Fog and State Man at Leopardstown over Christmas still burning bright in the memory.
She’s second in on Timeform ratings, a mere weight-adjusted three pounds shy of Constitution Hill, and a 7/4 second favourite who is shortening all the time.
She also arrives with King Of Kingsfield in tow. A horse who will make the running before passing the yellow jersey on to his pursuing stablemate.
And from as far out as the third last, the Champion Hurdle is going to get interesting.
There are two scenarios from there.
The first is Brighterdaysahead’s relentless, remorseless gallop, will gradually expose the lingering chinks in the favourite’s armour, breaking the 2025 model of Constitution Hill in a way nothing could remotely do in 2022 or 2023.
It’s wonderful that he’s back, but so far this term, at Kempton and Cheltenham, he’s been a stone shy of peak CH on Timeform ratings. If he is again on Tuesday week then he’ll struggle to win.
But there’s the second scenario too. The one in which the Elliott pair present the Henderson star with his optimum conditions.
The last time someone tried to break him from the front came in the 2022 Sky Bet Supreme when Dysart Dynamo and Jonbon went off like the hounds of hell were at their heels.
They couldn’t maintain the gallop, but Constitution Hill could, thundering to the front and then up the hill to produce a performance that, on only his third outing under Rules, put him within touching distance of legitimately being labelled the best two-mile hurdler we’ve ever seen.
The challenges he’s overcome since have been well documented but this time around it’s been plain sailing for Henderson, even the public workout at Kempton ended in hugs and high fives rather than sombre faces and realisation that all was not well that followed last year’s racecourse spin.
Is he as good as ever? Nico De Boinville and the trainer see no reason why he shouldn't be, but they can’t say yes for certain, no-one can.
It’s a guess, and an uneducated one for most.
But the fact he’ll need to be close to it to regain his crown is great news for the Festival.
Because it’s not just Brighterdaysahead who will line-up against him. The reigning champ State Man and Lossiemouth will be there too.
This isn’t a golden age for two-mile hurdling but the 2025 Champion Hurdle has the best horses in the division going head-to-head – and that’s a welcome sea-change.
It might just have a horse in it who is about to soar past the likes of Night Nurse, Sea Pigeon and Monksfield from the last genuine golden age in the pantheon of greats too.
It certainly has a mare who is number one in Ireland right now, on a roll and with the running style that could throw everything Constitution Hill can handle his way – perhaps even more.
And for that we say thank you Michael O’Leary.
Now about that one-hour flight time from Manchester to Dublin…
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