William Hill Champion Chase (Grade 1)

CLASS and exuberance have been key to most of Energumene’s 12 career wins, but it was his heart and toughness that saw him narrowly prevail despite some indifferent jumping at times in the William Hill Champion Chase.

Just two days on from Tony Bloom’s Brighton and Hove Albion football side losing out on penalties in the FA Cup semi-final against Manchester United, it looked as though the owner’s star chaser was set to go down fighting in a pulsating shootout of his own with 11-year-old stablemate Chacun Pour Soi.

The admirable veteran got the reigning dual Queen Mother Champion Chase winner in a serious scrap, with Chacun Pour Soi trading as low as 1/6 in the in-running markets, but a determined Energumene pulled it out of the fire for a sixth Grade 1 success in his career under Paul Townend.

Willie Mullins saddled four of the five runners in the €300,000 and supplied the 1-2-3-4, as Chacun Pour Soi was beaten three quarters of a length in second, pulling three and a quarter lengths clear of Blue Lord, who in turn was six lengths in front of a below-par Gentleman De Mee.

“Today he had to get down and fight it out,” said Mullins. “When Paul got tough with him, he answered every call and showed his grit. You can see probably the end of the season getting to him. Paul said he wasn’t as sharp as his last run at Cheltenham and he missed two fences, which isn’t like him. Maybe it was the colour of the fences today!

“Paul really pulled that race out of the fire - that’s the difference between a good jockey and a great jockey.”

Top of the charts

Townend added of the 2/7 favourite: “I think he’s the best two miler around at the moment and the fact that he was able to do things wrong today, and still win, probably shows he is a very good horse.”

It had looked as though Chacun Pour Soi’s powers were very much on the wane this season, entering Punchestown’s day-one feature with a mark of 157 (rated 176 when runner-up to Energumene in this race 12 months earlier).

He bounced back in a big way here, though, and pushed the winner to the pin of his collar, as Energumene traded close to 6/1 in-running when trailing on the run-in.

Chacun Pour Soi’s rider Danny Mullins said: “He’s getting a bit older but we’ve seen the spark in him today. When you come off the bend hard on the bridle to have a go at Energumene, you know he’s still got that spark.

“He got beaten but it was fantastic to see the reception he got from the crowd - it was just as loud a cheer as the deserving winner Energumene got. We rattled his cage for a while. Paul loves Chacun as much as we all do and leaned over to give him a pat after the line”