Festival hope Le Rocher gets job done but Williams not impressed

You might think a sizeable New Year's Eve crowd of around 6,000 would be cheering home a winning favourite, but the prohibitive starting price of Le Rocher meant he was greeted by the unusual sound of boos when he got up under Tom Scudamore in the three-runner novice chase.

The mood in his camp was not exactly buoyant either as trainer Nick Williams suggested the grey hairs under his tweed cap had got a little greyer during the race Buveur D'Air won 12 months ago before being reinvented as the champion hurdler.

And, despite perhaps not winning with the authority of a 1-10 shot, Le Rocher, a Grade 1-winning juvenile hurdler who had struck on his chasing debut just ten days earlier, will also be aimed at Cheltenham, with the JLT Novices' Chase his likely target.