Ted Walsh best summed up this year's Festival when he said: “There’s nowhere like Cheltenham. This is on a planet of its own.”

Where to start? Al Boum Photo’s win in the Gold Cup is a good place. A first Gold Cup for Willie Mullins after six seconds in the race and a redemption for both horse and jockey Paul Townend after the latter made an infamous blunder at last season’s Punchestown Festival.

The son of Buck’s Boum was literally the last one standing of Willie Mullins’s four runners as early as the 10th fence where unfortunately Invitation Only suffered a fatal fall, after Ruby Walsh had pulled up Bellshill and Kemboy had fallen at the first. It was left to Al Boum Photo and Townend to carry the hopes of team Closutton and that he did brilliantly, cruising into the race down the hill, picking up before the last and staying on up the hill to win comfortably from Tony Martin’s Anibale Fly, who ran another huge race in second.

Mullins said after the race: “I’d sort of resigned myself to not winning a Gold Cup but racing has been very good to me and if I didn’t win a Gold Cup so be it. Thank God for Al Boum Photo and for him to win a Gold Cup with Paul on board is the perfect result.”

Earlier in the week, Meath trainer Gavin Cromwell sent out Espoir D’Allen to win the Champion Hurdle by a hugely impressive 15 lengths. Remarkably none of the front three (Apple’s Jade, Buveur D’Air and Laurina), who dominated the talk and betting pre race, made the frame.

A hectic early pace may have played a part but it was clear coming down the hill that Espoir D’Allen was travelling best and in the end he could hardly have been more impressive under Mark Walsh.

Just the fifth five-year-old to win the race since Persian War in 1968, Espoir D’Allen is in a great place to build on this famous win in the coming years.

For many, Thursday is the lowest profile day at the meeting but it provided two of the most memorable moments at the Festival this year with the ultra-game Frodon and the ever likeable Bryony Frost taking the Ryanair Chase and Paisley Park winning the Stayers’ Hurdle.

Paisley Park has been a revelation this season, improving now to a dual Grade 1 winner despite looking in a big trouble at the bottom of the hill. His power-packed finish under Cork jockey Aidan Coleman won the day to provide trainer Emma Lavelle and owner Andrew Gemmell, blind since birth, with a hugely popular win.

There were so many other huge moments. Tiger Roll and Altior remarkably recorded their fourth wins at the Festival, in the Cross County Chase and Champion Chase respectively. The former, is now as short as 5/1 to become the first back-to-back Grand National winner since Red Rum.

There were some sad moments as well, none more so than the fatal injury suffered by Sir Erec in the Triumph Hurdle, in which he was a hot favourite. He was one of three deaths at the meeting, down from seven last year. On Tuesday, only four horses finished the National Hunt Chase, which led to bans for a number of jockeys, most controversially for Declan Lavery who rode Jerrysback to finish third. This week Lavery announced he would be appealing the 10-day ban, of which Sir A.P. McCoy labelled “a disgrace”.

The 14 winners Irish trainers sent out at Cheltenham last week may have been a drop on the previous year’s total, but significantly, there was a larger spread, with seven different trainers hitting the board. Mullins was crowned the leading trainer with four winners closely followed by Elliott on three. Henry de Bromhead’s two winners were ridden by Rachael Blackmore, who was winning at the Festival for the first time. There were also two winners for Joseph O’Brien and one each for Ted Walsh and Martin Brassil.