For the first couple of furlongs Le Rocher was fighting for his head so much that he barely noticed the first jump coming up and walked right through it. He settled thereafter in second and after hitting the second jumped okay to the finish.

Turning in Le Rocher was clearly going best and was upsides soon after two out. The acceleration he showed from that point was tremendous. He ran 1.5 seconds faster from the second last to the last than any other horse in the four hurdles on a high class card. This carried him 10 lengths clear by the finish.

The ability to quicken was most in evidence in Le Rocher’s first win over fixed brush hurdles in France. This was at Dieppe where the much faster surface enabled him to show flat race speed on the run-in and sprint right away from his rivals.

Le Rocher lost a Grade 1 at Auteuil where he just didn’t seem able to get any height over the jumps and hit almost every one of them. It looks like Le Rocher’s habitual jumping errors out of very soft ground don’t hinder him over the flimsy standard hurdles used at most British tracks.

He demonstrated this when surviving a blunder to take the Grade 1 Finale Hurdle at Chepstow.

Le Rocher shapes up as the one they all have to beat in the Triumph Hurdle. The bigger field in that race will give him more cover which will help him settle better than he did here. The likely faster ground will help with his jumping.