AFTER Talk The Talk’s final fence blunder at Christmas, JJ Slevin appeared to be avoiding any chance of déjà vu, as he left it late aboard Joseph O’Brien’s exciting five-year-old in the Tattersalls Ireland Novice Hurdle, but at one point it looked like he may have left it too late.

Storming home from the final flight, it looked to many like the chesnut hadn’t quite caught Ballyfad on the line, but was later declared a short-head winner over Gordon Elliott’s previously unbeaten charge. Willie Mullins’s leading hope King Rasko Grey finished half a length further back in third.