Moscow wins Champion Chase

Ireland's Moscow Flyer regained his Queen Mother Champion Chase crown with a flawless performance under Barry Geraghty at Cheltenham today.

The Jessica Harrington-trained 11-year-old is now unbeaten in 18 completed starts over fences after coming home clear of Well Chief. Azertyuiop had to settle for third.

Geraghty said: 'He´s different class. He travelled brilliant, but missed the last ditch again. He winged the last - gave it a foot.'

Kadarann and Central House took the field along at a clip early on, with Moscow Flyer and Azertyuiop sat in behind, and Well Chief towards the rear.

Everything was going well for the big three until the water jump, where Azertyuiop made a terrible blunder from which he did well to recover.

He had next to no chance after that and Moscow Flyer was full of running when taking it up three from home, with a confident Geraghty taking time for a look over his shoulder.

Well Chief was hot on his heels, however, and the race was on turning into the straight.

It looked up for grabs jumping the last but Moscow Flyer, the 6-4 favourite, pinged it and Well Chief, try as he might, was never going to reel him in on the run to the line and was beaten two lengths.

Azertyuiop came home a further 13 lengths away.

Harrington said: 'I watched every fence. He may have been a little bit slow over the fence he fell at last year, but other than that he was foot-perfect. He was great.

'He was absolutely brilliant, he really was. He did it the hard way. We had a good lead-up to the race. It was fantastic and we´ll try our best to be back here in 12 months´ time.'

Azertyuiop´s jockey Ruby Walsh said: 'My horse ran no race. On form he should have been dividing Well Chief and Moscow Flyer, but he was never going.

'When he jumped the first fence I was going a bit faster than I wanted to be. That´s not Azertyuiop.

'He made a mistake at the water but it didn´t matter. It was all over for me. At that stage I could hardly keep up. Obviously I´m very disappointed, I don´t know what´s up with him.

'The horse can´t tell you what´s wrong, but today he just wasn´t himself. He just kept galloping away but there was no life.

'Moscow Flyer is a marvellous horse, ridden by a great jockey, trained by a great trainer. My horse will be back to fight another day - all is not lost.'

Trabolgan recovered from a mistake at the second-last fence to take the Royal & SunAlliance Chase and give trainer Nicky Henderson his first winner at this year´s Festival.

Despite that error, Mick Fitzgerald was still able to bring Trabolgan through to take over from long-time leader Comply Or Die at the last.

Comply Or Die rallied up the hill, but Trabolgan (5-1) had enough in reserve to win by three lengths, with Cornish Rebel a similar distance away in third.

No Refuge came with a storming late run to record a brave victory in the Royal & SunAlliance Novices´ Hurdle.

Graham Lee - who rode Arcalis to victory in the opener yesterday - made up lots of ground after the second-last on the Howard Johnson-trained gelding to chase Racing Demon, who was committed for home on the turn by Jim Culloty.

The five-year-old, who runs in the Arcalis colours of millionaire owner Graham Wylie, got up to take the spoils by three-quarters of a length. Our Ben stayed on well to take third, two and a half lengths further away.

Ireland's Royal Paradise, the other 9-2 market leader, was easy to back beforehand and, although he raced prominently, could not get in a significant blow at the finish.