Walsh straight to the point as Douvan fails to hit dizzy heights

For many, the Champion Chase is the purest distillation of steeplechasing, with the bedrock basics of pure speed and precision pressure tested as in no other championship race.

On Wednesday Douvan was weighed in that merciless balance and found hopelessly wanting. It is never a pleasure to see the mighty fallen but there was not so much as a glimmer of his usual brilliance and the muffled drums were beating early in the race – this was not a horse about to claim a crown but one mounting the scaffold.

Douvan simply never jumped with the first semblance of fluency and seemed to take nearly all of the 13 fences differently and perhaps got as few as three of them bang right. He reached big time for the third, was wrong at the next and clouted three out.