'This was the race we wanted to win' - Nicholls strikes back as progressive Pic D'Orhy comes good in the Marsh

It is very hard to keep the champion trainer down. That is probably why he has been champion 13 times and looks sure to make it 14 when the season ends later this month.

It is fair to say the Grand National meeting had not be going as well as Paul Nicholls might have hoped. 

Not only had the horses that he was allowed to run failed to win, with Turners Novices' Chase winner Stage Star notably trailing in last of five here on Thursday, but he was also prevented from running the best of the lot, with Cheltenham Gold Cup second Bravemansgame barred from contesting the Aintree Bowl due to an FCA investigation into the firm of his co-owner, John Dance.

Yet Nicholls is the sort of man who can see even an empty glass as at least half full, and he managed to find a positive in that unexpected judicial intervention.

"It's one of those things that's out of my control," he said. "Who knows? It might be a blessing in disguise, Bravemansgame had a hard race at Cheltenham and he'll be back next year fresh and well."

He was speaking in the winner's enclosure at the time and there was even more reason for optimism in the way that Pic D'Orhy had given him a first success of the meeting in the Grade 1 Marsh Chase.

Nicholls had deliberately missed the Cheltenham Festival with the Peterborough Chase and Silviniaco Conti winner and was convinced that played a huge part in his willing four-and-a-quarter-length defeat of Fakir D'Oudairies, who had won this for the last two years.

"We did the right thing, missing the Ryanair and coming here," he said. "We kept him fresh and well and that was good. He's a better horse on a flat track. I'm not saying we might not go another day, but this was the race we wanted to win.

"The horses you target at Cheltenham, it's hard to get them back in that form here. A lot of horses that ran at Cheltenham didn't run quite so well. You're always going to get that, no matter whether it's three weeks or four weeks, that will happen."

Harry Cobden punches the air as Pic D'Orhy hits the line to win the MarshCredit: GROSSICK RACING

There was no doubt what the aim had been for Pic D'Orhy, and Nicholls said: "This race has been his target since he won the Peterborough Chase – he was trained for it. It makes a big difference when you target them. We set out we were going to go to the Silviniaco Conti Chase and then Ascot. This track suits him very well.

"He's been improving all the time this season. He started at Newton Abbot, he's worked his way through and that was a proper Grade 1 performance. Physically he's just a different horse to what he was last year."

Looking ahead to 2023-24, Nicholls said: "He'll probably take the same sort of route next season, but he could definitely end up in the King George at some stage."

Well though he kept on, the 15-8 favourite Fakir D'Oudairies could not reel in the winner, but trainer Joseph O'Brien said: "I was very proud of his run. He ran a very good race and probably would have liked a stronger end-to-end gallop, but there's no getting away from the winner, who's a very good horse. 

"I don't think the pace was very strong and they were quickening up over the last mile. He was coming home well and maybe he's ready to go a bit further as he gets older."

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'I was done, I was finished - again!' - Davy Russell bounces back on Gerri Colombe 

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Harry Cobden punches the air as Pic D'Orhy hits the line to win the MarshCredit: GROSSICK RACING