'He was a bit fitter than I thought!' - Dash Of Blue delights on chasing debut

Friday: Southwell

Dash Of Blue showed no signs of a lack of fitness when returning from a 634-day layoff to land the 2m4½f handicap chase.

Ridden by Jack Quinlan, the seven-year-old jumped smoothly on his first start over fences and after pulling alongside the leaders two out, picked up with ease to win by three and a quarter lengths.

"The way he jumped didn’t come as a surprise to me," said trainer Ben Case. "He’s been schooling with my son and has been very good. I wasn’t too worried about the jumping, it was just a matter of fitness today and he was a bit fitter than I thought he was.

"We’re just delighted. When you have a horse who has had that amount of time off you just want them to be fit and healthy, and produce what you know they can do. We’ll just have to see how he comes out of the race and go from there.”

Finding his voice

On the day Tiger Roll was paraded in front of an adoring crowd at Cheltenham, the trainer who bought him for £10,000 in 2013 unleashed another potentially smart horse in I Have A Voice.

The Nigel Hawke-trained three-year-old, who ran on the Flat in Ireland for trainer Jim Bolger, jumped imperiously under David Noonan on his third start over hurdles to take the 2m maiden hurdle by 28 lengths from Balgowan.

Results, replays and analysis

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