Ascot Chase: Pic D’orhy strikes again as Paul Nicholls’ star retains Ascot crown

Pic D’orhy produced a superb front-running display to make it back-to-back victories in the Betfair Ascot Chase.

The race got off to a flashy start, with Pic D’orhy, Corbetts Cross and L’Homme Presse racing into the first fence and jumping it three abreast.

However, first Corbetts Cross put in a couple of slower leaps to fall back and then L’Homme Presse’s jumping fell apart, leading to Charlie Deutsch pulling him up.

Harry Cobden and the Paul Nicholls-trained Pic D’orhy (9/5) encountered no such problems out in front and Mark Walsh was hard at work to keep Corbetts Cross in touch turning for home.

Two more fine jumps down the straight helped the 10-year-old leader to first maintain his advantage and then stretch further clear to prevail by an emphatic, eased-down 10 lengths.

It was a welcome Grade One win for Nicholls, as Pic d’Orhy joined Tiutchev, Monet’s Garden, Riverside Theatre and Cue Card as a dual winner of the race. He said: “We all have peaks and troughs but you have to believe in yourself.

“I knew he was dead right today, he loved it round here. When he won here earlier in the season, he didn’t beat much, but now the challenge is to keep him right for Aintree and make sure he’s in top order.

“Some of my horses haven’t been right since Christmas but we are on top of that now, we just lack a few horses like him at home.

“I’ve been incredibly lucky to win 14 championships but it’s hard, and you can’t stay at the top forever.

“Dan (Skelton) is a good mate with a huge number of horses and it won’t be a surprise if he wins the championship. What we have to do is build it up again, and I love the challenge.”

Cobden added: “He put it to bed fairly early and when you are that far clear, I just had to fill him up when I could.

“It was very easy for me to keep pressing when I did. Horses like him are so hard to find, he’s won so many big races – let’s hope he can make it three next year.

“This is massive. We’ve had a slow start but these horses are coming right now and I think we’ll have a good spring.”

An emotional owner Johnny de la Hey commented: “It meant an awful lot. It’s been a little tricky season for ourselves and Paul, to be fair, and a lot of people wrote this horse off.

“I was listening to a podcast last night and everyone said the horse was gone; we didn’t think that but we’ve been really patient with him, we were going to run him at Windsor but we thought the ground was too soft, and this was our Gold Cup – and we won our Gold Cup!”

The Changing Man makes the most of Jingko Blue departure

The Changing Man ran his rivals ragged to claim a wide-margin victory in the Grade Two Ebony Horse Club Reynoldstown Novices’ Chase earlier at Ascot.

After odds-on favourite Jingko Blue parted company with Nico de Boinville early on, Brendan Powell set a strong gallop on The Changing Man and gradually established a sizeable advantage.

Peaky Boy cried enough before the fourth-last and although Leave Of Absence tried to chase down the runaway leader, he never looked like landing a telling blow.

The Changing Man, who had been second in each of his last three races, kept up the gallop to run out a 24-length winner at 7/2.

Winning trainer Joe Tizzard said: “This race was talked about for some time and we’ve done the right thing. He’s only a novice for the next couple of months and he will be entered for the Brown Advisory [at Cheltenham].

“He deserves to take us to the big days out and he’s become sure-footed and assured.

“He made some silly mistakes last season and again in the Badger Beer, but he couldn’t have done it more impressively here. It was a novice chase and you have to jump round.”

A dejected Nicky Henderson suggested Jingko Blue could possibly make a swift reappearance at Kempton next weekend, adding: “It’s frustrating to say the least.

“We thought we had a great chance but we also hoped it would tell us where to go. Kempton is the only place I can think of, we’ll see how he is. It’s still a bit raw.”