BetMGM Queen Mother

Champion Chase (Grade 1)

THE Champion Chase’s reputation as being a graveyard for favourites shows no sign of abating after Il Etait Temps breezed to success for a first Cheltenham Festival triumph; meanwhile stablemate Majborough capitulated to beat just one finisher as 5/6 favourite.

It was again the old jumping frailties that reared their head for the horse tipped to provide J.P. McManus with his first Queen Mother victory. Having set off at a strong tempo under Mark Walsh, the cracks began to appear when he wasn’t smooth over the eighth, ninth and 11th of 13 fences, and he faded to be beaten 26 lengths in seventh.

All the while, Paul Townend was ice-cool on Hollywood Racing and Barnane Stud’s much-improved eight-year-old, who - like earlier Grade 1-winning stable companion Kitzbuhel - was bidding to bounce back from an incompletion on these shores last time out.

Once Majborough’s race began to unravel, the eye was completely drawn to Willie Mullins’ second-string, and - barring a scare on landing at the last - he was awesome here in striking by 10 lengths from 50/1 longshot Libberty Hunter. L’Eau Du Sud wasn’t far away in third for the Skeltons, while the 11-year-old Cheltenham specialist Captain Guinness ran the race of his season for fourth. He has now been first, second, third and fourth in the last four renewals of this race.

“I thought Paul was very brave on him, because he couldn’t go the pace they were setting for the first mile; he sat and sat, and coming down the hill we could all see that the further he was going, the better he was going,” said Mullins, now responsible for winning three of the last five Champion Chases.

“I nearly had a heart attack at the last fence, though! But the horse has come to himself at last. Taking the hood off and this [drying] ground made a big difference to him as well, I’d say. That was way his best performance at Cheltenham. I was wondering, was he a horse that didn’t like this place? But when we went through his form here, we found excuses for every run, and perhaps it wasn’t so bad after all.”

On Majborough, Mullins added: “He was going so well at home, but then when he made that first little error, then the second one and… It’s hard. He makes life hard for himself. We will have to wait and see. Hopefully there is a big one in him one day.”

Sean Bowen, rider of Libberty Hunter (second)

“I nearly came off him at the first and that fairly woke him up. He picked his feet up after that! He’s a strong stayer at that trip and he loves Cheltenham for whatever reason. He’s a good horse on his day but, to be honest, he hated that ground. I’d love to have a go on him in a championship race on real soft ground.”

Dan Skelton, trainer of L’Eau Du Sud (third)

“We’ve run our best race and I can’t complain. It was a dramatic race, but we were where we wanted to be most of the way. The pace was so strong for the first three parts of the race and then we’ve ended up there a bit early because of the way the complexion of the race changed. If we’d have been a little bit more negative with our run style, we may have been second, but we were never catching the winner. Fair play to him - he’s an incredible little horse.”