Nigel Twiston-Davies was on the wrong side of perhaps the most memorable finish the Betfair Chase has seen, when Kauto Star beat Imperial Commander by a nose here in 2009. There was less drama about the trainer’s victory with Bristol De Mai in the season’s first Grade One , as the grey crossed the line 57 lengths clear of Cue Card, but there was also a definite sense that, as with Imperial Commander, the best of Bristol De Mai may be yet to come.

Imperial Commander won the Cheltenham Gold Cup four months after his narrow defeat at Haydock, and that race – via a trip to Kempton Park for the King George on Boxing Day – is now the obvious target for Bristol De Mai after this win in the first leg of the Jockey Club’s £1m Triple Crown. Kempton will be a sharper challenge, while the ground at Cheltenham will almost certainly be faster than it was here, but Bristol De Mai is just six years old and still improving.

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In the absence of Sizing John, last season’s Gold Cup winner, due to the heavy ground, Cue Card was the obvious danger to Bristol De Mai according to the betting, but all the money was for Twiston-Davies’s runner in the minutes before the off, forcing his price down to 11-10. Daryl Jacob sent him straight to the front and while Bristol De Mai simply maintained his gallop on the final circuit, that was enough to burn off Cue Card and Outlander before the turn for home.

The winner was a little clumsy at the second-last but otherwise faultless in his jumping, and Bristol De Mai is now top-priced at 8-1 to keep his run at the £1m Triple Crown bonus alive in the King George on Boxing Day.

“He is quite a fragile horse, and he has gone wrong in the past,” Twiston-Davies said. “Whether we quite had him right for Cheltenham in the Gold Cup, maybe not. It possibly won’t be this ground at Kempton, but he’s got the engine and he can go faster than that, so I don’t think that would necessarily be a problem.

“If you’ve got an engine like that, you can do it anywhere. Probably, he is getting better, though at home you wouldn’t know. We don’t time them, and that’s the only way you can find it, but he’s always been a supreme horse.”

Bristol De Mai was 20 lengths behind Sizing John at Cheltenham in March but has youth on his side as he attempts to close the gap. “From six to seven, he could improve another 20 lengths easily,” the trainer said. “It’s a shame Sizing John wasn’t here so that we could see. He’s definitely an Imperial Commander type, a big, strong, gorgeous horse.”

Harry Cobden, who was riding Cue Card for the first time in public as the 11-year-old attempted to win his fourth Betfair Chase, was niggling slightly as they passed the stands with a circuit to run and never in a position to lay down a challenge to Bristol De Mai. “I think he’s run on a par with his other runs [at Haydock],” Colin Tizzard, his trainer said. “He’s just been beaten by a very good horse on the day. The winner blew the race away, really.”

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Cobden did register a winner earlier on the card, however, as the second-season novice chaser Clan Des Obeaux pulled seven lengths clear of Vintage Clouds in the graduation chase. He could now run in the feature handicap chase at Cheltenham’s December meeting, a race that Paul Nicholls, his trainer, won last season with Frodon.

Bristol De Mai’s success completed a double in the day’s most valuable chase events for Simon Munir and Isaac Souede, his owners, following the victory of Nicky Henderson’s Top Notch in the Christy 1965 Chase at Ascot. The biggest disappointment of the afternoon, meanwhile, also came at Ascot, where Defi Du Seuil, last year’s Triumph Hurdle winner, surrendered his unbeaten record finishing fourth of five behind Lil Rockerfeller in the Coral Hurdle.

Min, the runner-up to Altior in the Supreme Novice Hurdle in 2016, shrugged off an 11-month absence to win by 36 lengths at Gowran Park and will now enter the reckoning for major chase at the Festival in March.

Willie Mullins’s six-year-old took a Grade One novice chase on just his second start over fences last season but did not race again after suffering an injury in February. Saturday’s success suggests that his engine is unscathed and he could now step back into Grade One company at Leopardstown’s Christmas meeting.

GREG WOOD’S SUNDAY SELECTIONS



EXETER

12.55 We’ll Be There 1.25 Ayla’s Emperor 1.55 Castarnie 2.25 Brelan D’As 2.55 Crafty Roberto (nap) 3.25 Harbour Force 3.55 Padleyourowncanoe

UTTOXETER

1.15 Woolstone One 1.45 The Model County 2.15 Krackatoa King 2.45 Kris Spin (nb) 3.15 Twist On Ginge 3.45 Cave Top