Saturday’s two feature races showed once again that those with only a small stake in jump racing are still able to carry off a big prize. The Eider at Newcastle fell to Crosspark, providing Northamptonshire’s Caroline Bailey with the most notable success of her long career, while the main prize here went to the Neil Mulholland-trained Walt, whose owner nearly quit the game a year ago after losing the only other horse he had.

“We had one called Burns Cross,” Phil Simmonds recalled as he fussed over Walt in the winner’s enclosure, “and unfortunately he had a small injury on his foot. He went to the best veterinary surgeon we could find, in Newmarket, but unfortunately he died coming round from the operation; he broke his neck.

“I thought, I’ve had enough, I can’t live with that. But Neil said, stick with it, keep going, and it’s a tribute to him being so honest and frank with me that we’re here today.”

Simmonds, who grew up in Rochdale and made his money in software development, said he had been meaning to get into ownership from the time, more than 30 years ago, that he attended Haydock on a stag do. He was delighted by this first taste of the big time and can now look forward to a tilt at the Ultima on day one of next month’s Cheltenham Festival.

On a day when Graded prizes were mopped up by the big battalions of Paul Nicholls and Nicky Henderson, Simmonds made a plea on behalf of trainers who spend less time in the limelight. “From an owner’s point of view we need to support the Neil Mulhollands of this world more and more because they’re first-class and are up against it. I know there’s superstars out there but they’ve got the talent.”

Mulholland picked up Walt for £30,000 at an auction in 2016 when the horse was sold out of Henderson’s yard. He was winning this contest for the second time in three years, following Pilgrim’s Bay in 2017, and has a fine record in such races but has still found it hard to lay his hands on the right material.

“This season’s been up and down,” the Wiltshire trainer said. “We do have a lot of badly handicapped horses. The average price of a horse at the sale the other day was £115,000. So if somebody comes for a cup of tea and says, I’ve got a hundred grand for a horse, that doesn’t even get you an average horse, never mind the one you really want. It’s hard to compete with the big boys.”

Meanwhile Crosspark’s Eider success was a cheering change of luck for Bailey’s yard, which lost its most promising young animal, Captain Cargo, to a fatal injury in training last weekend. Bailey said Crosspark might not run again this season but would be aimed at all the major marathon prizes next winter.

Henderson unveiled a hugely promising young talent in Fusil Raffles, who ran away with the Adonis Juvenile Hurdle on his first run since leaving France. However, the youngster returned with a nasty cut to a hind leg and his recovery will need to go very smoothly indeed if he is to line up in the Festival’s Triumph Hurdle in less than three weeks.

The Supreme Novice Hurdle is still the plan for Henderson’s Angel’s Breath, for all that he met his first defeat in the Dovecote, proving unable to reel in the Nicholls-trained Southfield Stone. “It’s sharp enough round here,” the Lambourn trainer said. “Nobody’s despondent and I still think two miles is probably the right place for him, on a stiffer track. He’s giving them all 5lb, the two of them came clear and he was running on.”

A week after a brawl at Haydock that involved at least 15 men throwing punches, there was only a brief scuffle to report among the crowd here. One man was ejected after the incident was immediately quelled by security.