Card back on cue to regain Haydock crown

He is also unproven over the King George and Gold Cup distances.

Cue Card brushed aside 5-4 favourite Silviniaco Conti with attractive ease to join the vanquished as a two-time victor of the Betfair Chase.

The David Pipe-trained Dynaste, placed in this race for the last two years, stands his ground as he looks to make it third-time lucky.

While it may not hold the same historical ties as the King George VI Chase and the Cheltenham Gold Cup, the three-mile showpiece usually attracts a few of the best staying chasers in the country and is one Nicholls has dominated.

Cue Card is now just 5-1 with Ladbrokes, William Hill, Paddy Power and Boylesports for the King George.

He said: “He wasn’t as far forward as I wanted to run in a Charlie Hall or anything like that, hence the run over hurdles”.

I’m not in a big enough job to keep them coming up but at Wetherby I got very animated, very excited and people sort of wondered why, it was just a Charlie Hall (first English Grade Two chase of the season for Gold Cup pretenders, he won on Cue Card).

The absence of the top Irish-trained stayers means that Paul Nicholls’ Silviniaco Conti is generally odds-on to record a third triumph in the Betfair Chase and those quotes look justified. Despite that connections are confident.

“Why would we run away from Kempton?”

‘The way he’s done it out there today, he felt like a Gold Cup horse’. The King George will tell us a lot, I think.

“What I loved was from when he turned out the back he really got into gear and showed there’s still life in him, definitely”. They say class is permanent, form is temporary.

“If you had seen him on the gallops this week, he wants to get to the top of that gallop every day”. You can ride him how you like now.

Paddy Brennan had not won a Grade 1 since Nacarat’s victory at the 2011 Aintree Grand National meeting.

The prize was reintroduced by Jockey Club Racecourses in tribute to the recently deceased Kauto Star, who actually managed the feat after winning the first of his four Lancashire Chases in 2006, but he was a young, boundless improver back then.

“When I rode Imperial Commander, I never thought I’d have the chance to sit on another horse as good”, Brennan said. The way he’s done it out there today, he felt like a Gold Cup horse.

“A big win on a big Saturday, I’d like to dedicate this win to everyone in France, in Paris. I can’t stop thinking about him, he’s a dude”.

Colin Tizzard’s stable star has had well-documented troubles since being successful in this race two years ago and was well beaten by Silviniaco Conti 12 months ago.

The outcome of today’s select five-runner race will be revealing because the line-up includes Dynaste, Ballynagour and Holywell, three horses who could not match Cue Card’s fluent jumping and relentless galloping in the Charlie Hall. He jumped a little to the right and we might put the blinkers back on him next time as he races a bit lazily. “I suppose we will go to Kempton next”.

We will fine tune him for the King George and hopefully he is the horse we think he is.

He’s going novice chasing after this race and it looks the flawless stepping stone, with three miles on testing ground at Haydock no problem for a horse that rattled in a hat-trick granted such conditions last season.