My bet is that both the winner Djakadam and runner-up Bright New Dawn will go on to win Grade 1 races this season.

The pair disputed the lead throughout but Bright New Dawn (33-pace adjusted 39) slowed the pace down dramatically from the third all the way to seven out, soon conceding a narrow lead to his rival in the process. They covered this part of the race in 151.9 seconds compared to the 146.7 in the Leopardstown Chase over the same trip later on the card.

No doubt Bright New Dawn’s jockey was trying to avoid a repeat of his last run in the Grade 1 Topaz Novices Chase over the same course where he kicked on at a strong gallop after a couple of jumps and kept jumping to his right.

The mid-race slow down certainly seemed to stop Bright New Dawn from being pressured into jumping right, though he was still fiddling to his right when it was necessary to correct himself.

Apart from a couple of slow jumps he cleared the fences well and looked to be going better than his rival as they started rounding the home turn. However, as they ran up to the last and made their way up the run-in his head went to the right and he started hanging in that direction. I suspect this wouldn’t have happened if the final turn had been right-handed.

This was Bright New Dawn’s best ever run on my ratings but he has now lost all six times that he’s run on left-handed tracks. He’s won three of the four times he’s run over fences or hurdles on right-handed courses.

Bright New Dawn is a good-bodied, classy-looking sort that clearly has plenty of pace. He’s beginning to look like a two and a half mile specialist since he tired late here over a furlong longer and did so more dramatically last time over three miles.

However he’s still lightly raced, so I don’t want to be too dogmatic about whether he’ll stay longer just yet. The obvious immediate target for Bright New Dawn is the two and a half mile Grade 1 Powers Gold Cup at right-handed Fairyhouse. I’d be wary of opposing him there.

The winner Djakadam (34-pace adjusted 40) jumped really well and I liked the way he was happy to muscle his way through down the inside of his bulkier rival to dispute the lead. This bodes well for him handling bigger fields later on.

Djakadam has now won both his starts over fences and looks a serious contender for the JLT Novices Chase at the Cheltenham Festival.

Third placed Mullaganhoe River (28-pace adjusted 34) jumped slowly at the second and then pulled briefly when Bright New Dawn slowed the pace down from the next. He got a bit stretched when the pace quickened up but worked his way through to be third by just under four lengths jumping the last. He couldn’t go with the leading pair from there.

His wins have come in a three mile point-to-point, a two and a half mile bumper and two and a half mile novice races on heavy ground over jumps. It looks pretty obvious that he needs to go up to three miles.