THE Group 1 winner and late Ballylinch Stud stallion King’s Theatre (by Sadler’s Wells) has led the National Hunt sires’ championship title race pretty much all season and he held a massive advantage going into Cheltenham.

His sons Shaneshill and L’Ami Serge had to settle for second and fourth in the Grade 1 Sky Bet Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, he was without a runner in the second, picked up a five-figure sum for the fifth place earnings of The New One in the Grade 1 Stan James Champion Hurdle, had the fourth home in the four-miler, and supplied two of the day’s big race winners.

Glens Melody, whose pedigree was reviewed here a fortnight ago after her three-parts brother Lean Araig (by Old Vic) won a Grade 2 contest at Punchestown, won the Grade 1 OLBG Mares’ Hurdle (registered as the David Nicholson Mares’ Hurdle Race), and The Druids Nephew took the Grade 3 Ultima Business Solutions Handicap Chase earlier in the day.

The latter, an eight-year-old, was bred by Patrick Collins, and he is the best of three blacktype horses out of a placed mare called Gifted (by Shareef Dancer).

As one might guess from her sire, she was flat-bred and yet her ill-fated son Abbot (by Bishop Of Cashel) was Grade 2-placed over hurdles and another son, State Benefit (by Beneficial) has been Grade 2-placed over fences. Her dam is the French stakes winner Rexana (by Relko) and that made her a half-sister to two flat stayers of note.

Princess Sobieska (by Niniski) was runner-up in the Group 2 Park Hill Stakes and in the Group 3 Princess Royal Stakes and she finished third in the Group 3 Goodwood Cup, but that filly’s full-brother Sergeyevich was even better.

His five wins featured the Group 2 St Leger Italiano, the Group 3 Goodwood Cup and the Group 3 Sagaro Stakes, and the races in which he was placed included the Group 1 Gold Cup at Ascot, the Group 3 Doncaster Cup, and the Group 3 Jockey Club Cup.

The third dam of The Druids Nephew is the Listed Houghton Stakes runner-up Parthian Queen (by Parthia), and that full-sister to the 1966 Yorkshire Oaks heroine Parthian Glance was out of Tenacity (by Wilwyn) who won that same top race five years earlier. This is a family that has a long history of producing high-class racehorses and in The Druids Nephew it has its best representative under National Hunt rules.