HAVING opted not to go to Down Royal last Saturday, I spent most of the morning congratulating myself on a wise decision. Outside of the feature, which looked interesting rather than enthralling, it was a poor card and there was no sense of FOMO kicking in.

How wrong I was. The Champion Chase delivered an early winter thriller in a style that only top staying chases can, with three of the four runners battling from the last to the line. The odds-on favourite Gerri Colombe won but that doesn’t tell the full story of the race.

He hit a high of 36 in-running and victory looked highly unlikely for most of the last half mile before getting up in the closing strides, enhancing his reputation if not in pure form then at least in terms of his willingness and profile.

Gerri Colombe was not helped by Conflated jumping left as he raced on his outer, especially late in the race, and Jack Kennedy had to shift markedly to the inner to get a clear racing line where he showed a good attitude to rally late.

This tends to be a difficult race for horses just out of novice company, much like its sister race, the Betfair Chase. Only three of the 18 winners of the Haydock Grade 1 were second-season chasers, while the likes of Galvin (2021), Delta Work (2019) and Our Duke (2017) were all beaten at short prices at Down Royal before going to prove themselves well up to the grade later in those seasons.

All three of his rivals were race fit after recent runs and the question becomes how close to form Envoi Allen and Conflated were. Envoi Allen has a fantastic record at Down Royal and was also strong in the market, which has tended to be a good guide to his wellbeing since joining Henry de Bromhead, so it seems likely he was near his best, while Conflated had been expected to improve for his first start at Punchestown.

Front-running may not be ideal for that one however, while a left-handed track is also more his thing, and neither the second nor third could realistically be expected to count in a Gold Cup, so for Gerri Colombe it looks a case of a lot done, a lot more to do.

Gordon Elliott stated after the race that he intends to give his star one more run before Cheltenham and it is hard to know how that will play out. Staying chases are tough contests and some horses do best kept fresh for them, though that may not be ideal for Gerri Colombe. His trainer reports him an unflashy workhorse and he seems to only do enough so perhaps a busy campaign would keep him sharp while his best run of 2022/’23, both in terms of form and visuals, came at Aintree, his final run of the season.

One disappointing postscript to the Champion Chase were the comments from Elliott and de Bromhead that Conflated and Minella Indo could go the cross-country route at some point in the season.

The cross-country is an interesting curiosity, but a curiosity nonetheless, and really shouldn’t be taking proven horses from the top staying chases that are the crown jewels of the sport.

Conflated has won a Grade 1 in the last year, Minella Indo a pair of Grade 3s in the same period, so they are clearly competitive at this level, and perhaps a rethink on the qualification criteria for the Cheltenham Cross-Country is needed where these high class chasers are excluded, or at least are asked to carry a big weight in a handicap.

GORDON Elliott had his usual clatter of winners up north, but few will have given an individual more joy than Carl Millar on Magic Tricks in the big two-mile handicap hurdle on Saturday, just his fifth winner on the track and more significant than his others by an order of magnitude.

It looked a fine ride to my eye as he bided his time on the run to the second last, hemming in a few of his rivals in the process, notably The Model Kingdom, though that praise needs to be leavened with the rider picking out a four-day ban for careless riding. Neither Ruby Walsh nor Barry Geraghty on RTÉ Racing seemed to have any issue with the ride, each saying that the other was fond of doing the same in their riding days.

One interesting feature of the race was the decision of the J.P. McManus team to use a claimer on a fancied runner in a valuable race, Magic Tricks having been backed from an initial double figure price into a 5/1 SP.

Such riders have been used to good effect in valuable races by this owner and using the criteria of horses priced in single figures running in Irish jumps handicaps worth €20,000 or more since 2013, the below table is the breakdown by jockey whether they were claimers or fully fledged. More experienced riders like A.P. McCoy, Barry Geraghty and Mark Walsh have ridden numerous big handicap winners in the green and gold during this but the claiming riders come out better in all the measures listed above and more underplayed in the market.

It is something that the McManus operation have been using more recently, too. Between 2013 and 2017, they used claimers on fancied runner (i.e. SP 9/1 or shorter) 21 times in these races but since then it has happened 72 times.

They have been quick to latch onto the best claimers while they still had an allowance, the likes of Simon Torrens (five winners) and Darragh O’Keeffe (three winners) used extensively a few years back with riders like Mark McDonagh and Aidan Kelly getting their chance more recently.

The thing with claimers is that their claim will eventually run out, so trainers and owners need to keep finding new ones. Perhaps Millar will be the next one and he did his claims no harm on Saturday, but either way we can expect this operation to continue to utilise the value of talented young jockeys with a weight allowance.

ONE of the obvious takeaways from the two maiden hurdles at Naas on Sunday was the form boosts that Slade Steel and Mahon’s Way provided to the Willie Mullins-trained bumper horses that beat them last spring, Ballyburn and Mirazur West respectively. Maybe the de Bromhead pair will never reverse form with those Mullins runners, but Slade Steel should not be underestimated.

He won a bumper first time out for de Bromhead last December, which makes him unusual, as the trainer does not target those races and he was even mentioned for the Champion Bumper afterwards – again unusual, as he has only once had a runner in that Grade 1.

The form of that race worked out, the second and third competing well in graded races afterwards, and while Slade Steel did not go to Cheltenham, he did shape with promise with third at Punchestown after a four-month break under a wide trip.

On Sunday, Slade Steel defied market weakness to win by five and a half lengths, jumping well and showing good attitude while his time was excellent no matter what way you look at it. He covered the course 12 seconds quicker than the winner of the Fishery Lane and was also markedly quicker than Mahon’s Way when comparing them racing over the same part of the track. Given the race was well-run and his own strength at the line, there seems a good chance he will prove best over further than two miles.