A stirring contest between 7 fairly evenly matched horses, but as a piece of form it is at least one remove from true championship standard, with less than 6 lengths splitting the first 6 home. The pace was reasonable, and resulted in an OK time, but there was no more than a handful of lengths separating the entire field for the majority of the trip.
NOBLE YEATS (h151 here, ? previously) received weight from the majority of his rivals and capitalised without having to run near to the rating (c166) he has shown himself to be capable of over larger obstacles, racing quite wide and alternating between tracking and being in the front line, outpaced after 2 out but staying on to lead halfway up the run-in and holding on well despite drifting right. This puts him in a decent place with regards to the Grand National though there may well be a few better treated horses than him in that.
PAISLEY PARK (h157 here and previously) continues to run well, if a bit below what he was capable of a few years back (won this race from 2019 to 2022 inclusive), predictably found out for toe when the pace really increased 2 out but coming again under pressure and only just failing. His best chance in the Stayers’ Hurdle is probably if it turns into a real slog.
STRONG LEADER (h150 here, 147 previously) ran well in first-time cheekpieces and at a longer trip, last early, making a couple of mistakes before outpaced going to 2 out but rallying well to grab third.
DASHEL DRASHER (h154 here, 151 previously) ran about his best race of the season but looked like doing even better than fourth for a long way, leading/disputing before going on again for sure between the last 2, finding no extra and run down on the flat.
CHAMP (h154 here and previously) is getting long in the tooth and ran about as well as could be expected with no obvious excuses bar that he made a couple of errors along the way.
BOTOX HAS (h152 here and previously) ran creditably in a first-time visor, not helped by a blunder when in the front line 3 out but hanging on in there until weakening approaching the last. He could do with brushing up his jumping more generally.
FLIGHT DECK (h132 here, 149 previously) took a while to warm up and was not helped by some less-than-fluent jumping mid-race, dropping away after 3 out.
