Late u-turn to Cheltenham rewards Epatante's proud breeders

Such had been the crushing disappointment of seeing Epatante boiling over at Cheltenham last year, members of the French breeding family responsible for the new Unibet Champion Hurdle heroine had almost decided to stay away.

However, a last-minute change of heart by sisters Domnine de Chitray and Prudence Lefeuvre to head to the Cotswolds will have been one of the best decisions they will have ever made.

The pair are the daughters of Francois-Xavier and Anne Doulce Lefeuvre, who produced the brilliant six-year-old from their farm in Sarthe, near Le Mans.

The Lefeuvres, who have long had an involvement in the AQPS sphere, kept the daughter of No Risk At All in training with their son Armand for her career on the Flat, which included wins at Saint-Cloud and Le Lion D’Angers in 2017 before her transfer to Britain.

She had created such an impression in two hurdling starts for Nicky Henderson that she was a hot favourite for the 2019 mares novices’ hurdle but could finish only ninth.

Domnine de Chitray said: "My parents and my sister came last year and it was the only time that the filly didn’t win. We’re very superstitious and we thought that we had cursed her.

"We didn’t go to Kempton [when Epatante landed the Christmas Hurdle]. This year we were saying, we won’t go, we won’t go, and then yesterday, we said, 'we’ll go'. We were very nervous, but we’ll come back next year now!"

The sisters were rather overwhelmed by the experience on what was likely to have been a busier afternoon than at sleepy Fontainebleau, where Domnine’s jump jockey husband Alain was riding.

"I hadn’t been before and it’s just amazing, everyone is very friendly," she said. "The atmosphere is nothing like we have in France, where it’s so quiet. To come here and to see her win, particularly for JP McManus and Nicky Henderson, it’s just fantastic."

Epatante was the penultimate foal from her mother Kadjara, who also produced Alan King’s winning hurdler, Tante Sissi. Her last, Fanfaron Dino, has run three times recently for Anthony Honeyball in the McManus silks.

De Chitray, whose sister works in stewarding at France-Galop, said: "My parents have just six fillies and my brother Armand has 30 horses. He trained Epatante first.

"We don’t have the mare but we do have her sister [Virfollette] and last year she produced her first foal, a filly [also by No Risk At All] called Joyeuse. "

Asked if the family had imagined Epatante would reach such a height, she said: "As special as that? No. It was amazing, it was an easy win."

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