Cheltenham Festival 2015: Dodging Bullets bang on target as Sprinter Sacre and Sire De Grugy fire blanks

The 9-2 chance won by one and a quarter lengths

Dodging Bullets ridden by Sam Twiston-Davies (right), holds off the challenge of Somersby to win the Queen Mother Champion Chase (PA)

Sadly, painfully, not the fabled end for which the whole of Cheltenham yearned. Sprinter Sacre, one of the great ones, his victory here in the Queen Mother Champion Chase two years ago arguably as emphatic as any the Festival has seen in recent times, was already in the unsaddling enclosure when Dodging Bullets returned to the parade ring to gorge on the applause for victory in Wednesday’s renewal.

Gathered in a concerned circle of downturned mouths and heavy lids, trainer Nicky Henderson, owners and family members sought comfort in the early diagnosis of a healthy heart. Whatever it was that persuaded Barry Geraghty to pull up the Sprinter, it was not the irregular ticker that threatened to end it all at Kempton in December 2013.

He would be scoped to determine the cause of his malfunction. Like a parent sending a child into the operating theatre, it was a case of keeping everything crossed in the hope of a positive outcome. “It’s a setback, no doubt about it,” Henderson said in the first flush of disappointment.

“It hurts. He was looking so good. This was not the horse we saw at Ascot [in January] when he came second to Dodging Bullets. He was so much better than that, or so we thought. We knew, of course, that he was not the horse that won here two years ago. He didn’t need to be. No disrespect to Dodging Bullets, and congratulations to him by the way, but he should have been beating him if he were right.”

Henderson insisted there had been no resumption on the gallops of the blood traces that showed on his return. “Nothing at all, or else we wouldn’t have run him. You can protect them at home, but that is the one thing you can’t do here. It’s a great shame, not just for him but for everybody who had come to watch the battle with Sire De Grugy. Neither of them did anything.”

Whether Sprinter Sacre races again is a decision for another day. Either way the memory of that crushing victory over Sizing Europe will be his lasting legacy. He left a horse that had won here twice, including the Champion Chase in 2011, treading treacle 19 lengths back. He went off 1-4, a valuation that barely did him justice. Henderson described him as “scary”, such was the degree to which he defied convention.

Given the lethal toll this place can take on animals that fail to get round, we should be thankful Sprinter Sacre came back yesterday. “No predictions can be made today about what his future will be. He has been a great horse and if it is wrong to go on I’m sure we won’t do that. But if we can find a switch to get rid of whatever is wrong with him today, then who knows? There are still technically years in him.”

Dodging Bullets filled the gap admirably, substantiating his first victory over the Sprinter by outpacing Somersby from the last in a thrilling finish. It was the second of three winners on the day for Paul Nicholls, who suggested beforehand that were Dodging Bullets not to convert on this occasion he never would.

With Sire De Grugy out of it despite coming home fourth and A P McCoy unable to coax a response from Mr Mole, it was the Mick Channon-trained Somersby that drew alongside one fence out. How quickly attention shifts. The groans that greeted Sprinter Sacre’s end were quickly buried beneath the raucous appreciation of a proper thrash for the line.

Sam Twiston-Davies, who had just ridden Aux Ptits Soins to victory in the Coral Cup, justified his elevation to role of leading man at the Nicholls yard, sealing a mighty double for jockey and trainer in fine style.

“I thought Sam gave him a fantastic ride,” Nicholls said. “I know the other two were past champions but I couldn’t see how they were [shorter than] us in the betting. It must have been on sentiment. Dodging Bullets was the progressive young horse. He won’t run again this season. I expect we’ll be dreaming all summer.”

While Nicholls celebrated a marvellous day, Henderson, still without a win this week, felt the chill of a cold wind blowing out of the west. He was not alone. Judging by the height of heel and hemline, most on Ladies’ Day had gambled on the going being as good as it was on Tuesday. A hat delicately placed on hair tousled for the purpose quickly resembles battered topiary after a tornado has blown through. On the positive side, by mid-afternoon most were too oiled to notice.

The withdrawal in the morning of Champagne Fever denied Willie Mullins a pop at a race he has never won. An injury sustained in a horsebox demonstrates how vulnerable to the random variable this sport can be. Only the day before Mullins had spoken of the luck he had enjoyed in bringing all his horses to a peak. Now he was denied at a shot in the big one.

There would be joy, however, in the performance of Don Poli in the RSA Chase. Even if he does not claim another winner this week, Mullins will float home across the Irish Sea. Don Poli gave him his fifth winner of the Festival and is already 4-1 for next year’s Gold Cup.

Bryan Cooper (inset below) moved the big cruiser smoothly into position at the top of the hill. A mistake two out broke his stride and allowed the field to close, but he quickly righted that, taking the last like a salmon heading home.

Owner Michael O’Leary, who had earlier moved about the concourse largely unrecognised by the masses from whom he derived his fortune, was very much the man in the winner’s enclosure. As proprietor of Ryanair, O’Leary has some expertise in flying machines, if not leg room, and was thrilled at the way Don Poli denied others space to breathe. “Bryan gave him a peach of a ride and it’s another outstanding training performance from Willie. The man’s a genius.”