AT the end of the flat season, Willie Mullins prepared us for the dominance that is likely to follow at the start of the National Hunt season by almost completing the English and Irish Cesarewitch double.

He won the Irish Cesarewitch on Sunday with Digeanta, who battled on well under an aggressive and well-judged ride by Billy Lee. Available at 25/1 in the morning and sent off at an SP of 16/1, it was an astute move to re-route him from the Newmarket version on Saturday.

If the ball had hopped a little differently, Mullins could have won that one too with Renneti. The Irish Wells gelding was keener than ideal for Jamie Spencer through the early stages of the race, behind a pace that was unusually slow for a Cesarewitch, and he was forced wider than ideal in the home straight.

Even so, he picked up well from the three-furlong pole, and he finished best of all to snatch fourth place from Nearly Caught.

Renneti will be of interest off a similar mark if he takes his chance in the November Handicap at Doncaster and he will be of even greater interest again now over hurdles.

He has run just five times over hurdles, and remember that he was beaten just a half a length by The Tullow Tank in the Royal Bond Hurdle two years ago, when he had his stable companion Arctic Fire a length behind him in third.