MARLBOROUGH trainer Emma Lavelle believes the absence of several top stars is likely to make to an intriguing Cheltenham Festival next week.

Although an injury to Gold Cup favourite Thistlecrack, trained by Dorset handler Colin Tizzard, is perhaps the headline news ahead of the Festival, it is Irishman Willie Mullins who has been hardest hit.

Mullins has finished as the top trainer at the four-day event at Prestbury Park in five of the last six years, including each of the last four.

However, Faugheen, Annie Power and Min have all been ruled out of this year’s Festival, which gets under way on Tuesday due to injury, while another of Mullins’ charges, Vautour, suffered a fatal injury back in November.

Lavelle, whose Bonita Racing Stables yard is in Ogbourne Maizey, believes that could well open the door for others to go for glory.

“In the last few years, there have been a few Willie Mullins bankers,” said Lavelle.

“Maybe he has got such strength in depth that the second battalion will come out and be just as good, but it does seem to have that more of an open feel because of that.

“It’s a gutter for Willie and it’s been a tough season for him but it does open things up for other people and I think that’s probably important for racing that everyone has got a chance.”

The Festival is a meeting unlike any other and close to 250,000 racegoers will flock into the course next week.

As such, Lavelle says the prospect of leading home a winner provides a thrill that cannot be matched elsewhere.

“It’s just become this enormous thing. You have a winner in October and already people are saying: Is it going to make it? Are you going to run in at Cheltenham?’ said Lavelle.

“It’s absolutely the focal point of everyone’s season and a winner at Cheltenham is worth at least a dozen winners anywhere else during the season.

“It’s fantastic, it’s the cream of the crop and everybody is out to do their very best. It sees some fantastic stories, great finishes and on a social level, it’s a brilliant day out.

“The way Cheltenham is, it’s very special if you have a winner there. As you enter the winner’s enclosure, it’s an amazing amphitheatre of sound.

“If you have a winner, the hairs on the back of your next rise up to something extraordinary.

“It’s special and it is the championship – you are the best in your division if you win there.”