AS is so often the case a huge absence from the track is absolutely no barrier to success for Willie Mullins’ inmates and Marajman, who hadn’t run since a debut third at Pau in December 2017, made a winning Irish debut in the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Maiden Hurdle to bring up a double for the champion trainer.

The well backed 8/13 chance had to work to land this extended two-and-a-quarter-mile event and it was only after the second last, where he squeezed through on the inner, that Paul Townend’s mount began to get the better of Eye Van. To his credit the Roaringwater Syndicate-owned six-year-old, whose dam is a half-sister to the dam of the high-class mud-loving Mullins inmate Golden Silver, stuck to his task well on the exacting ground to defeat Axiomatic by six lengths. The first three home finished some 59 lengths clear of the remainder.