In hindsight, this should probably have been Petit Mouchoir's second Grade One win, as he was still travelling strongly when he fell in the Fighting Fifth Hurdle at Newcastle in November.
Special Tiara was a Grade One winner as a novice in 2013 when Sire De Grugy, last season's Queen Mother Champion Chase winner, was among his beaten opponents in Aintree's Maghull Novice Chase.
It started in the Old Roan Chase at Aintree, the first of just two runs in a handicap, when Kauto Star gave 9lb and a 21-length beating to Armaturk, who was a Grade One winner as a novice, and took in victories in the Betfair Chase, Tingle Creek, King George and Aon Chase before concluding with his first Gold Cup.
Douvan, however, took the Grade One Ryanair Novice Chase as serenely as he had the Arkle Trophy at Cheltenham in March and then the Maghull at Aintree earlier this month.
Participants as young as five years of age [ 31] or as early as grade one [ 31, 32] were enrolled in educational efforts.
Being rather overlooked as a dual Grade One winner on offer at 40-1.
Mullins finished the meeting with 14 winners from the 28 races, a remarkable achievement even by his standards, but he missed out in both Grade One events on the final day as Our Duke took the three-mile novice chase for Jessica Harrington.
So far, Douvan has won all four of his starts over hurdles since joining the trainer from France in the autumn of 2014, and took the Grade One Herald Champion Novice Hurdle here as smoothly as a starting price of 1-6 would suggest.
Grafter is a word that has followed Gary Moore around throughout his career as a jumps jockey and a trainer, but after another exceptional afternoon for the stable at this track he could soon be known as "Grade One" Gary instead.
