THE exact starting point of the National Hunt season ‘proper’ is often debated and never resolved; it can be early, late or never depending on your inclination, but the previous season’s Cheltenham Grade 1 winners starting to emerge after summer is as good an opening as any.

The first of them appeared in the PWC Champion Chase at Gowran last Saturday, Envoi Allen, though his performance built on a legend that he might be better known as Enigmatic Allen.