The Cheltenham National Hunt Racing Festival begins 3 weeks today and the meeting has suffered its biggest blow with the news that the Colin Tizzard trained novice chaser 'Thistlecrack' is to miss the Cheltenham Gold Cup on St Patrick's Day and the rest of the season with a tendon injury.

Thistlecrack proved himself as a chaser of the highest calibre by winning the King George Chase in breathtaking style at Kempton on St Stephen's Day. This was followed by a narrow defeat for the horse in the Cotswold Chase at Cheltenham in January, with the horse that beat him, Many Clouds, collapsing and dying after the race. The bosses at Cheltenham have had that kind of year in terms of bad fortune. 

Thistlecrack was a facile winner of the 3 mile World Hurdle at the March extravaganza last year, which made him the hot favourite for the 2017 Gold Cup.

In recent years we have seen some great battles at the Festival - Denman vs Kauto Star, Hardy Eustace and Brave Inca - and great champions in Hurricane Fly and Quevega.

This year's meeting has been robbed of some of the leading lights by the vagaries of injury.

Last year's Gold Cup winner 'Don Cossack' had to be retired because of injury, and the 2015 winner 'Coneygree' has failed to return to the top table. 'Vautour' was killed on the gallops. In the Champion Hurdle ranks, the Willie Mullins pair 'Annie Power' and 'Faugheen' will not make it.

What this all does is increase the unpredictability of the key races and makes shocks more likely.

The strength of Colin Tizzard's yard means he still fields the top 2 in the Gold Cup market, 'Native River' and 'Cue Card' - both around 3/1. Irish hopes will be led by the twice runner up, 'Djakadam', who is around the 11 to 2 mark. If they all turn up on the day!   

We will just have to wait a little longer to see a performance like this again from Thistlecrack: