BY my reckoning, at the time of writing, Irish-trained horses are favourites for 12 of the 18 non-handicaps at the Cheltenham Festival. That position was consolidated as a result of the successful Dublin Racing Festival, though winning at Leopardstown in February is not the same as winning at Cheltenham in March, of course.

To a degree, the Brits fought back in the last week, though the same caveat applies that winning at Huntingdon, Warwick or Newbury in February is not the same as winning at Cheltenham in March.

Nonetheless, a handful of performances in Britain recently have changed the dynamic of a few of those championship contests rather more than might have been anticipated. It is, as they say, game on!

The most obvious gauntlet to have been thrown down was for the Champion Chase by Altior in the race formerly known as the Game Spirit Chase at Newbury. He had only two rivals on what was his first appearance in 10 months, but one of them was the Grade 1 winner Politologue, who went into the race at a single-figure price for the Champion Chase himself.

EASILY

Altior won easily by four lengths from Politologue and looked very much like the Altior of old, the one who beat Fox Norton by 13 lengths in this race a year previously and who would very likely have won the 2017 Champion Chase had he not landed the 2017 Arkle Chase instead.

What Altior did not do last Saturday is run a fast time as the race was not set up for him to do so.

The pace was steady until the home straight, and it was only after the second last that the other runner, Valdez, got left behind.

Altior stalked Politologue before quickening past him on the run-in.

I have Altior’s timefigure here at 147, but he was capable of at least 170 at his best and that is what I will rate him now. Incidentally, Altior’s time of 19.1s from the last (a distance of about 286 yards) is the fastest I have at the course and distance since the same horse’s 18.7s a year earlier and remember that Saturday’s ground was borderline heavy and that Altior scarcely came off the bridle.

Altior deserves to be favourite for the Champion Chase, and Min (166 timefigure) deserves to be second favourite, though whether they should be quite so far clear in the betting over the likes of Special Tiara (160) and Politologue (158) is a moot point. I tend to think not, especially if the ground dries out between now and then.