UPDATED 9:43AM, APR 29 2021
Just when the patient was beginning to flatline, British jump racing’s ECG monitor flickered back into life thanks to a dominant and determined front-running performance from Clan Des Obeaux in the Ladbrokes Punchestown Gold Cup.
At the end of a chastening campaign that has seen its protagonists humbled at both Cheltenham and Aintree, Paul Nicholls summoned the bulldog spirit for which he is renowned by pitching his dual King George VI Chase hero into the lion s den. Fortune favoured the brave, not least because in Sam Twiston-Davies he had an accomplice willing to embrace such a valiant policy.