See also » Il Etait Temps dazzles in Queen Mother Champion Chase
It took him 24 hours to recover when he came home. He was a bit shaken and then he had to get on the ferry and come home and that’s not how you’d like to do it, but it was a case of what we did and once he got home he settled into his routine and recovered quite quickly. We just had to get the spark back into him. We took the hood off and tweaked a few things at home and galloped him a bit differently, a bit like Lossiemouth (Tuesday’s Champion Hurdle winner), and it’s worked. I thought Paul was very brave on him today as obviously he couldn’t go the pace they were setting for the first mile, but I could see coming down the hill Paul was happy and he had his position coming to the final bend. I think the better ground maybe helped him. I was wondering whether he was a horse who didn’t like this place, but when went through his form at Cheltenham we found excuses for every day. We took the hood off him as we had to do something different. From when he was a young horse he was very keen and always wore the hood, but when he disappointed we said he had to change something. Paul was very good on him today. I had a bit of a heart attack at the last, but it looked he had plenty of horse underneath him. W P Mullins, trainer