It was a 1-2-3 for The Festival’s most successful trainer Willie Mullins with Gala Marceau (2nd) and Zenta (3rd) filling the places.

Mullins now has 93 Festival wins. This was his fourth JCB Triumph Hurdle success.

Willie Mullins said: “Rather than fighting Lossiemouth, Paul let her gallop, and he just held on to her for as long as he could. Once she jumped the last it was just a matter of hanging on, and he actually thinks there’s more in the tank.

“She’s a star mare. But for the traffic problems she encountered at Leopardstown [in a G1 on 4 February], she’d be unbeaten - for us, anyway.

“I’m very happy with how they all they ran, apart from Blood Destiny, who was disappointing - I don’t know what happened, I’ll have to talk to Patrick [Mullins, jockey]. This was a nice start to the day.”

Paul Townend told ITV Racing: “It wasn’t ideal at that stage in the race to be honest [that she was pulling my arms out at the top of the hill], but I wasn’t going to fight her too much, she was throwing her head about a bit, she just wanted to get on with it. I didn’t question her stamina, so I just wanted to keep at an even gallop. She was actually, I thought, was having a little look around up the straight.

“I think she is very good. She is very professional, even though she hasn’t had a whole lot of racing. Thankfully we were able to make up for the mishap at Dublin for Rich and Susannah.”