Voy Por Ustedes bides his time to take laurels

RACING:Jumping is, as the convenient cliché goes, the name of the game and the importance of getting that fundamental element right was never better illustrated than in Voy Por Ustedes's triumph in yesterday's Queen Mother Champion Chase.

Despite being almost the forgotten horse of the race, it was last year's Arkle winner who emerged best after an incident-packed day-two feature that saw the heavily-backed favourite Well Chief exit at only the second fence.

The groans that greeted that mishap had barely subsided when the big Irish title-holding hope Newmill then did his best to take the third fence out by the roots.

Considering the visitor's other big hope Nickname had been taken out of the race in the morning due to ground conditions, it didn't bode well for another Irish championship victory and instead the eye was inexorably drawn to the stealthy progress being made by Voy Por Ustedes from the rear of the field.

It was an entirely appropriate way for the horse to launch his challenge because his progress under the radar mirrored the way both his trainer, Alan King, and jockey Robert "Chocolate" Thornton have quietly but efficiently entered National Hunt racing's rarefied elite in the last couple of years.

King (40) made the long journey from his birthplace in Hamilton in Scotland to spend 15 years working for the late David Nicholson where he picked up the rudiments of training, and often too picked up the pieces arising from the Duke's often volcanic temper. But he learned well.

It's easy to forget sometimes that the smoothly fluent Scot only started training in 1999 and missed out on his first Cheltenham festival the following year due to foot and mouth. There has been no time wasted since then and yesterday's big-race triumph was his sixth festival triumph following My Way de Solzen's triumph on Tuesday.

"Solzen took the pressure off a bit and I was actually able to enjoy today a lot more. It's a lovely position to be having horses like these and really it's just a pity the Duke isn't here to enjoy it. He would have been very proud," King said.

Thornton is also a product of the Nicholson school of loud barks and quiet encouragement, although what his former mentor would have made of the luxuriant long blond hair that Thornton sports is probably unprintable.

The jockey is currently making the most of his hirsute appearance as on April 18th, Tony McCoy is due to shave it all off to raise money for the Injured Jockeys Fund.

There was certainly no suggestion yesterday of any of it getting in his eyes either.

"I saw Well Chief go but it was important to not let that affect me. Just because the favourite goes doesn't mean you're automatically going to win. By the next fence I was back in the zone," the 28-year-old said.

In front of him, Ashley Brook and Newmill quarrelled for the lead, with Dempsey just behind them, but there was no getting away from Voy Por Ustedes's smooth progress to two out where he put in his own mistake. Crucially though, Thornton got him to the other side.

"From a long way out, I knew we were wrong so it was a case of sitting tight. Once we were over it, I always thought we'd get to Dempsey," he said.

Ashley Brook's tired fall at the last left Newmill in for a fourth placing that his trainer, John Murphy, was not surprised by.

"At that speed, when you hit a fence, it can really knock you back, and he made two mistakes early on. You don't get away with that. Having Ashley Brook alongside him probably didn't help because it probably buzzed our horse up," Murphy said.

"He hasn't had a busy year so we will look at Aintree for him next and there's also Punchestown. Considering the mistakes, he ran a cracker," he added.

Well Chief's supporters had to think about what might have been had he stood up, and the Nickname camp were left wondering about what might have been, but Voy Por Ustedes will always be the 2007 Champion Chase winner.

"I was quietly confident before the race even though a lot of people seemed to have forgotten about my horse and it worked out really well," was Thornton's verdict while King was looking forward to a future with both Voy Por Ustedes and My Way de Solzen.

"If I can't keep the two of them apart, I'll be doing a very bad job!" he joked. "It was a pity Well Chief fell today, but he would have had to be good."

Well Chief's trainer David Pipe reported: "He was the best horse in the race but you need luck and he didn't have it."

No doubt, both King and Thornton would disagree with that verdict, but quietly.