YOU do not often see valuable handicap chases won in the style in which Chatham Street Lad won the Caspian Caviar Gold Cup on the New Course at Cheltenham last Saturday, let alone by a novice who had previously run only in ordinary contests.

Fifteen lengths and 12, in a 17-runner field that had seemed to contain some well-treated and smart chasers, had that “too good to be true” look to it, but the clock does not lie (even if our interpretation of it is sometimes found wanting!) and the clock says it was as good as it looked.