Chesterfield lands thriller to follow up Aintree success

Chesterfield followed up his victory at Aintree's Grand National meeting with success in the QTS Scottish Champion Hurdle as Seamus Mullins' seven-year-old ran down the Paul Nicholls-trained Zubayr in a thrilling photo-finish.

The pair pulled away from 5-1 joint-favourite Mohaayed with Vosne Romanee coming out best in a bunch finish for fourth.

The winner returned at odds of 12-1 and it was a memorable result for the trainer.

"I've won a Cotswold Chase but this would be my biggest winner, said Mullins. "It's a great deal for his owners, but here and Aintree had been the plan. We were going to go to Cheltenham but he didn't get in, and thank goodness he didn't."

This is proving to be quite a spring renaissance from the winner. He had been off for two years when returning in December but, having dropped to a mark of 131 for new connections, he'll be pushing 150 now following this result.

In what was a bit of a messy race, Sam Twiston-Davies on Zubayr and winning jockey Daniel Sansom showed the most initiative in kicking on two from home.

It was Zubayr who went first and Twiston-Davies's move looked decisive, but Sansom was quick to counter it while most of the other riders were caught napping.

In a ding-dong battle up the run-in, it was Chesterfield who just got up to win by a short head with Mohaayed two and a quarter lengths back in third.

For the winning jockey, this was a career highlight and he was rightly chuffed.

"That's my biggest win," said Sansom. "I didn't get the best of runs in the straight, but he pinged the last whereas the other horse didn't, but I didn't know whether or not I had won."

Full result