As impressive performance as you could wish to see in a Towcester beginners’chase on a Sunday afternoon and ARDAGHEY proved a class apart from today’s opposition. He could be called the winner from some way out and never came off the bridle at any stage, cruising clear of his rivals turning for home and his jockey was afforded the luxury of being able to ease his mount down to a walk in the final half-furlong, such was the gelding’s superiority. He was therefore value for a great deal more than the official winning margin. VCBet were obviously impressed, they halved his odds for the SunAlliance chase from 50-1 into 25-1 and connections are now planning on heading straight to the Festival. There do though, have to be reservations about whether he willbe as effective on the likely better surface there, given he relished these testing conditions.

Great As Gold was well held in second but his superiority over the remainder was emphasised by the 13-length gap back to the third horse. This was a much better performance than his dismal recent Southwell effort and, on this evidence, he could turn out to be decent over fences.

Exceptionnel and Woodlands Genpower weakened having been prominent throughout but the former was making his debut over fences and has scope for improvement. He can be placed to advantage, while the latter will surely break his duck over fences sooner rather than later and seemed to react positively to the cheekpieces.

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