Bar One Racing Hilly Way Chase report and reaction: Energumene back with a win

Willie Mullins’ 10-year-old, not seen in public since April 2023, is the highest-rated National Hunt horse in training with Timeform and duly picked up where he left off, but the 5/4 favourite’s task became much easier when Banbridge unseated his jockey Richard Deegan at the final fence.

Paul Townend took up the running early on aboard the brilliant Energumene and he had all bar one of his rivals in trouble heading into the home straight.

Banbridge looked to be mounting a challenge on the outside of the leader but Energumene appeared to jink right and didn’t do any favours to his closest rival who unshipped his jockey after meeting the jump all wrong.

Dinoblue (5/2) stayed on to take the runner-up spot but was 10 lengths adrift of the winner, with Appreciate It (9/1) third and Blue Lord (10/1) fourth in a clean sweep for trainer champion trainer Mullins.

Paddy Power cut the winner to 5/1 from 10/1 for the Queen Mother Champion Chase at Cheltenham, a race he won in both 2022 and 2023.

“That was a very exuberant display from him,” Mullins said.

“I thought Dinoblue would make more of the running, but Paul said his horse was just looking for fences to jump and wanted to go a better gallop, so he let him on instead of fighting him.

“I was very happy with how he jumped and he had been doing everything right since he came back in August. Hopefully he can keep going that way and it was a nice performance to build on for the season.”

Energumene memorably came off second-best in a titanic clash with Shishkin in the Clarence House Chase at Ascot in January 2022 and whether he will head back to Berkshire for a possible clash with Shishkin’s stablemate Jonbon, the current Champion Chase favourite after Saturday's Tingle Creek win, next month remains to be seen.

“He didn’t look like he needed the run, galloped the whole way to the line and had looked excellent since he came in,” the champion trainer added.

“Normally we skip Christmas (with his Hilly Way Chase winners) and the Clarence House Chase was what we did previously, so we’ll see how he comes out of it before making any decision.”

Speaking on RTE Sport, Mullins said he was impressed with Jonbon: “He (Jonbon) put in a terrific round of jumping, it’s there to play for. We’ll give him competition, it’s one we’ll all look forward to whenever they meet. Hopefully we can keep them apart until Cheltenham.”

Mullins also had good news on the talented but fragile Ferny Hollow, who was in the process of running a decent race on his return to action before falling in the home straight.

He said: “I’m told Ferny Hollow is fine and the news back is that he is good and came home and I was very happy with how most of the rest ran.

“It was nice to get them out and started for the season so we’ll try to find opportunities for them.”

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