AS if you needed any signal that Gordon Elliott means business at Down Royal, the main man himself turned up to yesterday’s meeting with his tie fastened up to the top button, and a smart-looking coat and flat cap to boot.

This is Elliott’s time of the year and Down Royal is most certainly a happy hunting ground. After yet another four-timer yesterday, the Meath trainer improved his win-rate at this two-day meeting to 53% since 2019.

Now, you’re not going to win backing him blind. The market is well aware Elliott’s big guns are primed to fire at this meeting and so are other trainers. At times yesterday, it was fairly uncompetitive but the Cullentra team can’t do anything about that.

The battalion is well and truly kicking now after what has been a slower-than-usual start to the season proper.

Since 2015 to last year, Elliott has had an average of 23.5 winners in Ireland in October, but sent just 11 winners out here last month. But there have been positive signs in the last fortnight as even before racing yesterday, he had sent out 11 winners. If they haven’t been winning, lots have been placing - 34 of his last 65 runs have hit the frame.

Elliott’s good record at Down Royal extends to the main event, the Ladbrokes Champion Chase (2.32). He is odds-on to make it five wins in 10 years today through the combined force of Galvin and Conflated.

Both horses are intriguing in their own way. Galvin looked primed to run a huge race in the Gold Cup, having toppled A Plus Tard in the Savills Chase at Leopardstown but the middling pace at Cheltenham seemed to find him out and when the opposite was the case in the Punchestown Gold Cup, in behind Allaho’s tour de force, he could never get into the race.

Granted, that can happen at the end of the season at Punchestown, and he looked as good as ever at that track when defending his title in the Daily Star last month. He seems teed up nicely to go one better here now, with no primed-up Frodon to contend with this year.

Conflated probably should have run in the Gold Cup. That seemed to be Elliott’s preference but the O’Learys might well have held sway on running in the Ryanair. He was likely to finish second there to Allaho, but came down at the second last. He went on to Aintree and closed right up on Clan Des Obeaux late in the day, showing his prowess back over three miles.

Elliott is a little worried about him going right-handed today, and you feel the two Grade 1s at Leopardstown are bigger priorities. That might be the case for Kemboy as well, but he has a little to prove in any case, after a poor finish to last season and two defeats already in this campaign.

And what for Envoi Allen? For the last three years he has started his season with a win at this meeting but they came at odds of 1/4, 4/11 and 1/14. He’s in and around the 8/1 mark today and that looks fair. For a horse who was hyped up as a future Gold Cup prospect when he was running in bumpers, this will actually only be his second ever run over three miles, on his 19th start in all.

Big day for Vanillier

VANILLIER was a horse on many a to-follow list last season. Gavin Cromwell’s gelding began promisingly when third to Lifetime Ambition over a possibly inadequate trip 12 months ago at Down Royal, and while he did go on to win the Grade 2 Florida Pearl Novice Chase on his next start, he was mostly disappointing thereafter, with poor jumping the root cause.

His trainer thinks he might have found the remedy for that problem in the off season and indeed today will provide the telling evidence as he takes on three other runners in the Grade 2 Eventsec Chase (3.07).

“His jumping last year just wasn’t good enough really,” Cromwell said. “He has had kissing spine surgery through the summer so hopefully it will have done the trick. He seems to be jumping well at home but we’ll know more when he gets into a race.

“It’s really about his jumping performance today. The two-mile-three-and-a-half-furlong trip is a long way short of his optimal trip but he put in a nice round of jumping and a solid run, we’d be happy with that.”

His chief rivals according to the betting are Gordon Elliott’s Grade 1 winner Fury Road, who must concede weight all around, and Willie Mullins’s Fighter Allen.

The latter is intriguing. A half brother to Envoi Allen, he hasn’t got near to that sort of standard but he was well backed for a good handicap chase at the Punchestown Festival last year before departing early.

It is rare the champion trainer has a runner for this race but his only two in recent times finished second (Easy Game, 2020) and first (Real Steel, 2019).