Mercian Prince takes feature race in style, but not everyone happy with ground

Jack Quinlan and Amy Murphy had no complaints about the ground after Mercian Prince made all on another hot day in the £50,000 William Hill Sussex Champion Chase, but the Plumpton board will review staging the race in its present format after Gary Moore's withdrawal of Not Another Muddle left a field of only three from an original entry of 22.

Despite ground officially described as "good", a later chase which had an original entry of ten was rendered a walkover when Chris Gordon withdrew King Cnut because of ground he described as "unacceptable" in places. In this instance Moore was the beneficiary, as his Darebin was left to walk over.

Gordon said: "There are a couple of places on the chase course which are unacceptable in my opinion. Down the back it looks as if they have not watered into the fences, and they have not watered coming away from them. It's like a road at that fence at the top of the hill."