He's not the messiah but Samcro no longer a naughty boy after festival revival

Where do you start with Samcro? Do we go back to the beginning? The giddiness. The anticipation. The point-to-point win over Elegant Escape. The facile 17-length bumper success at Fairyhouse. Each performance drenched in possibility.

Or do we fast-forward to last month at Cheltenham? The day when all we thought we knew about him was ripped up and thrown in the trash. The day he sucked the seeds out of Melon by getting down and dirty when it mattered most in the Marsh Chase. Something we had never seen from him before.

There is nothing unusual about a top-class novice hurdler evolving into a top-class novice chaser; Yorkhill did the Ballymore-Marsh Chase double only a few years earlier. But this particular evolution is very unusual indeed. So, that is why we must begin in the middle with Samcro, because it is the most perplexing part of all.