Tony McCoy© Photo Healy Racing
Tony McCoy made a triumphant return to the saddle with victory on Southfield Royale in the opener at Fontwell.
After three weeks on the sidelines, the 19-times champion jockey showed no rustiness as he gave the Neil Mulholland-trained four-year-old a typically strong ride to land the Free Tips At raceclear.co.uk Novices' Hurdle.
Taking his tally for the campaign to 153, McCoy always had the jumps newcomer, winner of a bumper at Market Rasen, close up until going on at the third-last.
Coologue, the 1-2 favourite, looked to be going well for Noel Fehily, but McCoy asked his mount for extra and Southfield Royale (2-1) obliged to score by two and a half lengths.
The leading pair drew 16 lengths clear of Rosa Imperialis in third.
McCoy told At The Races: "It's good to be back, I missed riding.
"I'm very lucky I've had a lot of good people looking after me."
McCoy went on: "I was slightly worried about the ground because he won his bumper at Market Rasen on better ground, but he's a good type of horse and Neil's done well.
"Neil said he was the sort of horse you have to keep going forward. He said the more he jumped at home, the better he was. He jumped pretty well for a horse first time and you'd like him.
"The staff at Oaksey House have helped me get better and it's nice to be back."
Mulholland said: "We've always thought a lot of him. He's very well bred and thankfully he's done what we were hoping he would do. I had him entered three times last week and I was scratching my head where to go.
"It looked like a two-horse race today and it looked like a good place to start. It was going to answer a few questions. Just because he's by Presenting, it doesn't mean you don't run them on soft ground.
"We wanted to find out and learn a little bit about him and it's paid off.
"We won't rush him. I'll speak to Mrs (Angela) Yeoman (owner-breeder) and AP (McCoy) and we'll see where we go.
"Obviously today, having his first run over hurdles we wanted to be as good a confidence booster as possible.
"He fluffed the last a little but that was the first time he'd really gone down to a hurdle."
