Racing: Surefooted Cenkos soars into top flight

Nicholls' young pretender stakes Champion Chase claims while Business gets Rehearsal lines right

Not that Paul Nicholls needs the fame, but the old and young pretenders gave the trainer 15 minutes to treasure yesterday. At Chepstow, See More Business, a few weeks away from his 13th birthday, gave weight, age and a grinding beating to his rivals in the Rehearsal Chase, and here at Sandown eight-year-old Cenkos put himself right in the reckoning for the Queen Mother Champion Chase with an emphatic victory in the Tingle Creek Chase. "They both had a point to prove," said the Minehead-based trainer, "and they both did."

Cenkos's task was to show that his defeat of the two previous winners of the Cheltenham two-mile crown, Flagship Uberalles and Edredon Bleu, over the same course back in April had been no fluke and, a certain amount of mayhem behind him notwithstanding, he completed it in fine style. Ruby Walsh sent him to match strides and leaps with Edredon Bleu from the start and, of the pair, he proved 14 lengths the stronger.

The winner and runner-up coped with the soft, greasy conditions and tricky fences like two well-schooled impala, but behind them the sailing was not so plain. At the fifth obstacle Flagship Uberalles, winner of the Grade One contest for the past three years, put in a jump so extra-vagant that his reaching front legs gained no purchase on landing and he flopped to an undignified, half-sitting halt. Just behind him, the Irish raider

Moscow Flyer, the best two-mile novice last year, took such violent avoiding action that Barry Geraghty had no chance of staying in the saddle. And, rather unfairly, as he sprawled in the mud and watched Moscow Flyer disappear into the gloom, Flagship Uberalles and Richard Johnson maintained their partnership, regained their equilibrium and completed the course in fourth.

Moscow Flyer had another part to play. Relieved of his burden, he shot forward to join the leaders and, as Walsh kicked clear off the final bend towards the third-last, the Pond fence, the loose horse headed first up the hurdles track and then back to join issue with Cenkos. A riderless rival can either be a help or a hindrance, providing company without competition or getting in the way, but in this case Walsh rode a finish against him and prevailed by a short-head.

"To be honest," admitted the talented Irishman, "I thought he had a rider on him. I'd seen him disappear up the other track to my right and then when I heard something coming at me from the other side and saw the sheepskin noseband out of the corner of my eye I thought it was Flagship Uberalles." Better safe than sorry, and when Walsh realised his error he was only mildly abashed. And Cenkos finished so strongly and freshly that there can have been no fluke about his victory. "They would have needed wings to have gone past him," confirmed Walsh.

The bookmakers' consensus is that Moscow Flyer should be given another chance and he remains Champion Chase favourite in most lists, with Cenkos leapfrogging Flagship Uberalles as second choice.

The winner joined Nicholls in April last year. "The trick to him is that he's got to be seriously fit and well," he said. "We gave him a two-mile racecourse gallop the other day and he came a furlong clear of Vol Solitaire, and when that one won during the week we knew we had some ammunition today."

Nicholls may have been here in person but his heart was at Chepstow with See More Business, who was winning his third Rehearsal Chase and his 17th race in all. The former Gold Cup and dual King George winner will now have a break over Christmas, with the Jim Ford Chase at Wincanton in February pencilled in as his next outing. "People have said he should be retired," said Nicholls, "but we will be the judges of that and I think he showed today he is still in the game."

Bindaree, seven lengths adrift in receipt of 20lb, stayed on strongly on his first completed start over fences since his Grand National success. He is now set to run in the Warwick Gold Cup in the new year, bypassing the Welsh National back at Chepstow just after Christmas.

Favourite for that marathon is the high-class hunter-chaser Gunner Welburn. Now one of a handful of jumpers in Ian Balding's charge, the 10-year-old outjumped and outstayed his rivals under Barry Fenton in the three-mile handicap an hour before the Rehearsal Chase.

Back here, there was reward before and after the Tingle Creek Chase for the connections of two of the defeated. Impek, representing the Edredon Bleu team of Henrietta Knight, Jim Lewis and Jim Culloty, took the Henry VIII Chase while Jessica Harrington, Moscow Flyer's trainer, gained quick compensation when bottomweight Spirit Leader took the feature handicap, the William Hill Hurdle.