Champion Chase: the inside track on the key players, plus a Video Tip

Majborough is in pole position to take advantage of the absence of last year’s winner Marine Nationale in the BetMGM Queen Mother Champion Chase on Wednesday.

Even if Barry Connell’s star had not missed the race with a late setback, Majborough would have gone off favourite but his task has been made significantly easier.

Winner of the Triumph Hurdle two years ago for Willie Mullins, he looked a likely winner of last year’s Arkle before making a massive mistake at the second-last fence and he performed a minor miracle to be beaten less than a length by Jango Baie.

His jumping frailties were evident at Punchestown afterwards and in his first two outings this season, but cheekpieces transformed him last time out.

“I’ve just been training him the way I’ve always been training him and I was happy enough with his jumping. He might have had one or two schools before the DRF, but very little I’d say,” said Mullins.

“It’s all about getting him right and he’s come right and I think Mark (Walsh) is happy with where he is as well.”

Mullins has a very strong second string for the race, too, in multiple Grade One winner Il Etait Temps.

Impressive in the Tingle Creek in December, he was a faller in the Clarence House Chase on his latest start.

“The last day I’m not sure the tactics were right, jumping off behind two-and-a-half-mile horses rather than just jumping out and taking the race by the scruff of the neck,” said Mullins.

“There was no spark in him that day. He was all right after, maybe a little shaken.

“He surprised me in Sandown last year, but he came out and did it again in the Tingle Creek and I was hoping he’d reproduce that at Ascot, but he didn’t.”

Leading the home team in the absence of Jonbon this year is Dan Skelton’s L’Eau Du Sud.

His season started in style winning the Shloer Chase but he failed to reproduce that in the Tingle Creek and Skelton regrets the decision to run him just three weeks later, as he is convinced the grey is at his best when fresh.

“He’ll be in the same sort of form he was for the Shloer and we’ll see if that’s good enough, I think there’s a few in the race we can beat and there’s a few it remains to be seen,” said Skelton.

“I think we’ve a lot of ticks in boxes and I think he’s a real player. I couldn’t have done what they (the Irish who ran at Dublin Racing Festival) have done with their horses with this horse, this horse has to be super-fresh. If they had too hard a race remains to be seen.

“Majborough looked like he went round in second gear, but he should have won the Arkle last year and he didn’t because he didn’t jump well enough and that is a question mark for our competitors. Ours is the class angle to answer, I think we have what we need, let’s hope it’s enough.”

He went on: “He’s a horse that is very good fresh, the mistake I made last year was I shouldn’t have run him at Warwick in the Kingmaker, we should have gone straight to the Arkle. I’m not saying we would have won, but we only had two and a half lengths to make up so we haven’t made the same mistake again.

“His work has been good since he came back, it’s all systems go.”