Energumene justified 6-5 favouritism to become the 13th dual winner of the two-mile Betway Queen Mother Champion Chase as he repeated his success of 2022.
His win was one of another four for Ireland with wins as well for John Kiely, Gordon Elliot and Henry de Bromhead as well as a second of the day and fourth of the meeting for Willie Mullins.
“Paul had a very positive frame of mind going out,” said Mullins speaking about Jockey Paiul Townend on the Champion Chaser.
“He said he was going to jump off up there. He thought everyone was going to be very tight and he wanted to be away fast and that is the way the race worked out. He had it right and the horse loved the ground and jumping. He was just brilliant on the day and Paul was just brilliant on him. I was way more confident coming into this year’s race as we hadn’t got Shishkin to take on and we thought if there was any improvement from the Clarence House that with hopefully with a clear round he would win.”
“Paul came home from the Clarence House and said they won’t beat us again. The horse’s work and jumping and everything has been brilliant. We were just fingers crossed for a clear round. It did (exceed my expectations how he did it). I was hoping to win but the way he did it was something else. It (did help coming here last time) as he just propped at the first one and that just upset him. This time around we schooled him hugely over white fences and it didn’t worry him today.”
“We tried to make him a two and a half mile chaser but his jumping was so slick we decided to come back to two miles with him. It looks like he has improved from last year. What can I say, hopefully he will hold that form until next year. I’ll be praying for this sort of weather this time next year. The whole game plan will be to work back from this next year.”
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary was in the winner’s enclosure with Delta Work as his renewed love affair with racing gathers pace again.
It was not as good a day for the Sport for Business tipping with one winner oand one placed horse to add to yesterday’s four winners and a placed horse among our selections.
