JIM CULLOTY already has one eye on Lord Windermere’s Cheltenham Gold Cup defence next March after revealing his stable star will not run again this season.

The eight-year-old got the better of On His Own by a short head and survived a stewards’ inquiry to claim steeplechasing’s blue riband event, and Culloty feels his charge has done enough for the current campaign.

Speaking after seeing evenmoney favourite Prince Of Lombardy win at Thurles in the colours of Lord Windermere’s owner Dr Ronan Lambe and under Gold Cupwinning jockey Davy Russell, Culloty said: ‘‘He came out of the race great but the decision has been taken not to run him again next season.

‘‘We’re very happy with him and he’ll be trained for the Gold Cup again next season.

‘‘I’ve no plan for him but he definitely won’t go for the Hennessy Gold Cup again at Newbury.

‘‘Something like the Kinloch Brae Chase back here (Thurles) could be a nice place to start off.

‘‘It all depends on what ground we get in the autumn as he won’t race on fast ground.’’ Reflecting on what has been an amazing few days, the trainer said: ‘‘We had good craic on Sunday night and we brought the kids to the St Patrick’s Day parade on Monday, with the Gold Cup trophy.

‘‘We also went to a point-topoint, but it was back to work on Tuesday at 6am. Since the Gold Cup I haven’t had a minute to myself but I’ll go away for a few days next week and switch off my phone. It’s been hectic but brilliant.’’ Lord Windermere was one of two Festival heroes last week for Culloty and Lambe, with Spring Heeled winning the Kim Muir.

Tony McCoy believes More Of That represents his best chance of winning another Betfred Cheltenham Gold Cup. The 18-times champion preferred At Fishers Cross to More Of That in the Ladbrokes World Hurdle and was proved wrong as the six-yearold, trained by Jonjo O’Neill and owned by JP McManus, maintained his unbeaten record.

McCoy, who chalked up another double century of winners this week, hopes the unbeaten six-year-old will switch to fences sooner rather than later and give him the opportunity of landing a third Gold Cup triumph after Synchronised in 2012 and Mr Mulligan in 1997.

‘‘Jonjo had been telling me for the last three weeks to ride More Of That. I should have listened,’’ he said. ‘‘The disappointing thing was I didn’t ride him last week but the good thing is I am going to get to ride him and I think hopefully in the near future he could be a Gold Cup horse.’’