Wholestone overcame an absence of 455 days to win an attritional renewal of the William Hill Rendlesham Hurdle at Haydock.
For the vast majority of the contest runner-up Top Ville Ben seemingly had the prize in safe keeping, turning the screw up front.
Molly Ollys Wishes tried to keep tabs but she was beaten three out - and a slow leap there seemed to have sealed Wholestone's fate.
However Sam Twiston-Davies galvanised the eventual winner who was upsides at the last and with his rival tiring on the run-in, ploughed through the mud to score by 13 lengths.
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Nigel Twiston-Davies, whose phone was exploding with well-wishers, said: “He’s a very popular winner, he’s a very special horse and he’s done an awful lot in his time – but he’s not in the Stayers’ Hurdle!
“He might be supplemented, you never know, but I wouldn’t have thought so. I’d say the Aintree race (Liverpool Hurdle) is the one for him. He’s always had a lot of class and you have to remember he’s very good over fences, so the world is his oyster now.
“That was some performance. He’s a class horse, so why shouldn’t he run well? But he was written off in the press. I wasn’t really expecting it, though.
“He’d been off for so long because he hurt his foot badly when he fell here (November 2020), but it’s all right now, he even lost a shoe today.”
Top Ville Ben’s trainer Phil Kirby was pleased with the performance of the gallant runner-up.
He said: “He’s run a blinder and done nothing wrong, he’s just been beaten by a better horse on the day. I know he looked very tired at the end, but there’s not a bother on him and he wasn’t distressed or anything.
“The National is the plan now as long as there is cut in the ground – I just hope it’s not as deep as today! He took to the fences really well in the Becher Chase. I know he fell but he’d jumped them grand before that.”
