DUE to their position near the beginning of the jumps season “proper”, the two Grade 2 races at Wetherby’s late-October meeting can fall to the most race-ready, and not necessarily the best, horse.

On balance, that seems to have been the case this year, when Silsol won the West Yorkshire Hurdle and Irish Cavalier the Charlie Hall Chase.

The former had not run since June but hailed from a Paul Nicholls stable that is in terrific form at present; the latter had a recent run at Chepstow under his belt and was receiving 4lb from his two nearest rivals for good measure.

Both winning times were decent for the grade - worth timefigures of 150 for Silsol and 160 for Irish Cavalier - but there is a further reason why the Charlie Hall may prove a less-than-reliable result.

Wetherby has recently switched to portable fences, which means that anyone taking sectionals there must use times to recalculate the distances between obstacles.

This process over the two days revealed that the Charlie Hall was joint-slowest from two out and slowest of all on the run-in of five chases, two others of which were also run at approximately three miles.

That should not be the case given the abilities of the horses involved, unless they went too quickly in the Charlie Hall.

Finishing speed %s in the race of comfortably below 100 (which is about what might be expected of a truly-run race) confirm that it was run at an overly-strong pace, though not by a great deal.

Given that Cue Card was the one who went for home first - looking to have both Irish Cavalier and Menorah in trouble briefly - it was he who will have suffered the most.

While he is (as they say) “not getting any younger”, it is premature to imagine that this defeat signals his demise.

Similarly, Blaklion looked just about second-best until emptying late on, with this his first run in over six months. There seems every chance that the second-season novice can go close in staying handicap chases off a BHA mark of 154 with this under his belt, with the Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbury an obvious target.

Another contender for that race is Native River, also rated 154 over fences by the BHA, who ran a perfectly respectable reappearance in second to Silsol, recording a timefigure of 147 (though he might have finished a place further back had the rallying Ballyoptic not fallen at the last).

It would, however, be a slight surprise if the principals in the West Yorkshire Hurdle made into leading contenders for top staying hurdle honours hereafter, even with the exceptional Thistlecrack having had his attentions turned to chasing.