Mullins pulls it off again

The middle day of Cheltenham 2000 was comfortably familiar. The Queen Mother Champion Chase again provided the finish of the festival, Noel Meade rediscovered how to snatch defeat from victory and Willie Mullins won the Bumper. Simple really. Except it wasn't.

It was Mullins's fourth success in the Weatherbys Bumper but it came with the apparent 14 to 1 afterthought, Joe Cullen, who only joined the four-strong Mullins team after the injury to Adamant Approach. "When we found out Adamant Approach couldn't run we just decided to bring this horse, and Charlie (Swan) rang up for the ride. We're delighted because he's owned by my wife Jackie and is bred by her, too, but we couldn't sell him. I was trying to sell him up to 10 minutes before the start but Noel O'Callaghan (Alexander Banquet's owner) wouldn't buy him!" grinned Mullins.

Swan could hardly believe his luck either. "He loved the ground and is a fair horse now," said the jockey, who loomed behind the favourite, Inca, just when that one had got the measure of the Mullins first string, Tuesday. That one faded to fourth, but the Mullins hold on this race is emphasised by the presence of Be My Royal in third place.

Edredon Bleu and Direct Route went past the Champion Chase finishing post with nothing between them except for Tony McCoy's awesome strength. Having set a red-hot pace from the start of the backstretch, Edredon Bleu was surely entitled to say enough is enough when headed by Direct Route half way up the run-in, but McCoy isn't interested in what anybody's entitled to. At that stage the hot favourite, Flagship Uberalles, unsuited by the surface, had had enough, but although Norman Williamson was later referred to the Jockey Club for his use of the whip on Direct Route, it was McCoy that galvanised a second effort out of Edredon Bleu who was atoning for a runner-up finish last year.

For the winning trainer, Henrietta Knight, it was a day to remember, as just over an hour later, Lord Noelie added to Edredon Bleu's victory when beating off the Irish hope, Alexander Banquet, in the SunAlliance Chase, with the other Irish favourite, Native Upmanship, only fourth. "This is the day of my life, winning two such important races here," said a clearly ecstatic Knight, but not far behind her in the glee stakes was Lord Noelie's Killarney-born jockey Jim Culloty who was enjoying his first festival victory.

Both Alexander Banquet and Native Upmanship possibly found the ground just too fast, with the latter's rider Conor O'Dwyer reporting: "He made a couple of mistakes, including the second last when I wanted him to ping it. Any chance he had disappeared then."

Willie Mullins said Alexander Banquet didn't enjoy jumping on the rapidly drying out ground, which just about summed up Noel O'Callaghan's day, but no one can have been more gutted than Barry Geraghty. On Native Dara in the Coral Cup, he looked all over the winner, only for What's Up Boys to produce the sprint of the meeting and pip Noel Meade's horse on the line.

At least one warm favourite did what was expected of him, however, with Monsignor easily taking the SunAlliance Hurdle for Norman Williamson, although Charlie Swan's No Discount ran a blinder to be a clear second.