Easily one of the most popular high profile successes of the season came at Navan last Sunday and it arrived in some style too as the Sandra Hughes-trained Acapella Bourgeois turned in the performance of the week in the Grade 2 Ten Up Novice Chase.

A smart novice hurdler, the Network gelding promised to be better over fences and this display showed that he is now ready to fulfill his billing as a horse of major potential. The seven-year-old came into this three miles event having shown steadily progressive form over fences but he took things to an entirely new level with this display.

Admittedly his rivals afforded him far too much leeway in front but even so this was a tremendous display. He opened up a lead of over 20 lengths from an early stage, jumped superbly and his level of dominance was such that this race was as good as over fully a mile from home.

How Acapella Bourgeois would cope with better ground at Cheltenham is another matter but he clearly possesses more than enough talent to play a major role in the RSA Chase and there wouldn’t be a more popular winner all week.

Tremendous prospect

On the same card Gordon Elliott’s Sutton Place once again showed that he is a tremendous prospect for the coming seasons with victory in the Grade 2 Boyne Hurdle.

On another good weekend for his trainer Sutton Place was widely expected to win the Boyne for which he started odds on favourite. There was a point just before the straight where he looked to be in difficulty but the manner in which he picked up without coming under strong pressure was very striking.

On form and ratings Sutton Place was perfectly entitled to dispose of these rivals but he still quickened up in some style on the run in. It would appear that he will bypass Cheltenham this season and his connections may well opt to take a relatively low key route with him for the rest of the season but he is unquestionably a horse of prodigious potential.

The previous afternoon at Gowran Elliott’s Tombstone lowered the colours of Jezki in the Red Mills Trial Hurdle. A defeat against a rival who is rated some 20 pounds below him was hardly the ideal Cheltenham warm up for Jezki but he has always been a horse who is at his best on better ground and he will be of distinct interest wherever he goes next month. Indeed if connections opt to go down the Stayers Hurdle route he is worthy of strong consideration as nothing in the field for that race can boast his calibre of form.

For his part Tombstone was showing just why Elliott has always held him in some regard.

He looks a tremendous chasing prospect for next season but in the short term one wonders whether this success might prompt connections to make a supplementary entry for the increasingly open Champion Hurdle.

Entry Limit

Disappointing news emerged last weekend when The Irish Field revealed that just 6,000 racegoers will be allowed into the Curragh to witness the Irish Derby and also the second day of Irish Champions Weekend. This is due to health and safety reasons as the racecourse undergoes its major redevelopment programme.

In 2016 these two fixtures attracted crowds of over 18,000 and 9,000. Quite simply, racing in Ireland is not in a position to be turning away crowds of this size and it is a notably retrograde step that of the two of the Irish flat season’s biggest fixtures are being allowed to take place under such restrictions.

The unveiling of the weights for this year’s Grand National weights created headlines last week when the treatment of several Gigginstown House Stud-owned hopefuls drew stinging criticism from owner Michael O’Leary. This episode followed on from other issues surrounding the handicapping of Irish horses in Britain.

Setting aside the Grand National, the British Horse Racing Authority (BHA) are on record as saying that they keep their own Irish handicap ratings. Surely the most sensible, logical and transparent course of action would be for the BHA to publish their Irish ratings.