GAVIN NOT 'HALF BAD

Cromwell's incredible season can finish off in style with another big winner with a mare who was so unlucky at Cheltenham

- BRIAN FLANAGAN

IT'S hard to think that Gavin Cromwell could have ever imagined a season like this when he sat down at the start of the year.

Inowthewayurthinkin's brilliant Cheltenham Gold Cup success was the crowning achievement in a fantastic season where Cromwell has firmly established himself as the third biggest player on the Irish jump racing scene behind Mullins and Elliott.

He's won almost €3m in prize-money and saddled 91 winners in Ireland and Britain this season and he'll be hoping to pick up more big prizes at Punchestown this week.

SIXANDAHALF (4.50) came agonisingly close to giving Cromwell a third Cheltenham Festival winner, getting mugged in the shadows of the winning post by Air Of Entitlement in the Dawn Run Mares' Novice Hurdle.

Indeed, Cromwell and jockey Keith Donoghue are probably still trying to figure out how she got beaten as she looked all over the winner as she cruised to the front before the last.

Perhaps she was in front a fraction too soon but the partnership gets a chance to atone in today's Listed Close Brothers Mares Novice Hurdle.