Reporter: Andy Gibson
Given the incredibly quick times through most of the meeting I doubt there was very much good to be found in the ground. The going was clearly faster than the official description of good ground. No surprise to see plenty of late withdrawals and not a day to put too much trust in the reliability of the form.
I doubt he has achieved very much here other than putting together comfortably the best round of jumping in this five strong field. It is the way a rating has been acquired that is most important rather than the rating itself. In this instance Doyen Quest has been raised to an extremely flattering 149 after beating the 151 rated runner up who ruined his chances by continually losing ground by jumping out badly to his right. The third and fourth to finish missed the break to varying degrees and the Ditcheat horse gave himself no chance with several mistakes on the way round.
Not for the first time he jumped badly out to his right at many of his fences and seriously hindered his claims as a consequence. He lost ground at each of the three Railway Fences just as the eventual winner was beginning to turn up the heat.
Having missed the kick at the start by a long way he quickly made up the lost ground. Perhaps his jockey would delay his challenge for longer if he was given his time again. He decided to make his move at the Pond Fence which was probably too far out to give him any chance of sustaining his challenge over a trip beyond his best. He still performed well but was arguably the only one of the five runners that would have been in his element on this fast surface.
His chances of victory were seriously reduced very early on when he missed the break and then nearly lost his jockey after over jumping the first fence. He is usually a trail blazing front runner and his tardy start made it very difficult for him to get his head in front and dictate the pace.
His jockey stated post-race that he was never travelling after making too many jumping errors and I would concur with this view.
