THE Coral-sponsored Welsh Grand National at Chepstow can be overshadowed in its usual slot on the day after St Stephen’s Day by other events in a frenetic festive period, which is a shame as it is a major test of not just jumping and stamina but also, at least some of the time, of ability.

It may be asking a bit much of the latest winner, Elegant Escape, to emulate past winners Synchronised and Native River, who went onto win the Cheltenham Gold Cup, or even the Grand National winners Bindaree and Silver Birch, but he is one of the race’s better winners for sure, and the stopwatch shows that he got anything but an easy time of things on the day.

The pace of this year’s Welsh Grand National was strong – arguably overly so in reality – but Elegant Escape raced close to it before steadily asserting late on to beat his fellow six-year-old Ramses De Teillee by a length and a quarter. The first two have been credited with timefigures of 157 and 149. By way of comparison, Elegant Escape’s overall time on ground that was only just soft was 1.3s quicker than Native River’s time two years earlier, but the latest edition was fully 5.0s (nearly 25 lengths) ahead of that race going onto the final circuit and still 4.5s ahead at the first in the home straight for the final time.

It was pretty slow motion stuff late on, but Elegant Escape does stamina very well and also had the edge on his main rival in terms of jumping when it mattered. He needs to improve at least 10lbs to go close in an average Cheltenham Gold Cup, but that is not too farfetched of a gelding who came third to Presenting Percy in the RSA Chase last March.

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There was another notable win on the same Chepstow card for Quel Destin in the Coral Finale Juvenile Hurdle, but the clock underlines that this was not much of a test (overall time 5.3s slower than concluding bumper) and he and neck runner-up Adjali get timefigures of just 111. Torpillo continues to lead the way among juvenile hurdlers on 140.

A positive mention should be made of the handicap chase won in ready style by Doitforthevillage, who earned a 143 timefigure in a well-run race which had seemed to contain a few nicely-treated types beforehand.