THE Group 1 winner and late Ballylinch Stud stallion King’s Theatre (by Sadler’s Wells) has led the National Hunt sires’ championship title race pretty much all season and he held a massive advantage going into Cheltenham.

His sons Shaneshill and L’Ami Serge had to settle for second and fourth in the Grade 1 Sky Bet Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, he was without a runner in the second, picked up a five-figure sum for the fifth place earnings of The New One in the Grade 1 Stan James Champion Hurdle, had the fourth home in the four-miler, and supplied two of the day’s big race winners.