FRENCH-BRED winners were commonplace at Punchestown and Asterion Forlonge (Coastal Path) and Rapid Response (Network) obliged in blacktype chases. The first-named was bought by Harold Kirk for £290,000 after he won a point-to-point, and now he has gone on from being a Grade 1 winning hurdler to landing a Grade A chase.

Trainer Willie Mullins knows Coastal Path (Halling) well as he has also trained his sons Bacardys and Franco De Port, that stallion’s only other Grade 1 winners.