Il Etait Temps shows his time is now with stunning display in Tingle Creek

Il Etait Temps, odds-on at 8-11, made it plain his trainer, Willie Mullins, will not relinquish his UK trainers’ championship without a struggle. He ran out a convincing winner of the Grade One Tingle Creek Chase here on Saturday, with Jonbon next across the line and L’Eau Du Sud, trained by the title-race leader, Dan Skelton, third.

The race was a three-cornered contest on paper and so it proved for much of the way. Jonbon, winner for the past two seasons, led the way with L’Eau Du Sud and Il Etait Temps in close attendance. All three were jumping superbly in a contest where a single mistake can be decisive, but as they rounded the final turn and headed towards the Pond fence, it was clear Paul Townend, on Il Etait Temps, was travelling significantly better than his rivals.

Townend slid around the inside rail and cruised into a clear lead between the final two fences before crossing the line nine lengths in front of Jonbon.

Il Etait Temps has had a stop-start career over fences since winning his first chase start in November 2023 and spent most of the 2024-25 season on the sidelines. He returned to action here on the final day of the campaign in April to beat Jonbon in the Celebration Chase.

This victory was his seventh success in nine chase starts, five of which have come at Grade One level, and he was clipped from around 6-1 to 4-1 co-favourite for the Queen Mother Champion Chase of next year’s Cheltenham festival. He is alongside Marine Nationale, last year’s winner, and his stable companion, Majborough, who is due to line up for the Hilly Way Chase at Cork on Sunday.

Earlier on the card, the four-year-old Lulamba was a hugely impressive winner of the Grade One Henry VIII Novice Chase, pulling nine-and-a-half lengths clear of Be Aware under a motionless Nico de Boinville . That led to him swiftly joining Willie Mullins’s Kopek Des Bordes at the top of the betting for the two-mile Arkle Trophy at Cheltenham.

Lulamba took a while to find his rhythm and was less than foot-perfect at a couple of early obstacles, but he powered his way towards the lead down the back straight and then cruised clear after jumping the last.

“I’ve gone from being pushed around by other horses, to being able to push them around,” De Boinville said. “That just shows how much he’s got under the bonnet.”

Nicky Henderson, Lulamba’s trainer, will now plot a route towards the festival for the four-year-old, which is likely to take in either the Kingmaker Novice Chase at Warwick on 7 February or the Game Spirit Chase at Newbury the same afternoon.

“It’s always been a question of how good could he be,” Henderson said, “and we didn’t learn a lot over hurdles. He was a bit unlucky not to win a Triumph Hurdle, but this was always going to be his game whether it was now or we waited another year.

“The feeling across the camp was that he might just want another half a mile, but he showed there that is not necessary, which is nice, and having looked very effective at two miles, we can now stay at two.

“He enjoys it and he’s not the sort of horse you want to sit on on a Monday morning, he’s so fresh and well and the horse just loves life. That’s what I enjoy about him and every morning he comes out happy and if he never came out with a buck and a squeal, you would know there is something wrong. He talks to you.”

Lulamba and Il Etait Temps justified their odds-on SPs, but the punters had suffered a difficult start to the day as Sober Glory, at 4-7, trailed home fourth of five behind Hurricane Pat in the opening Claremont Novice Hurdle.

Lulamba races clear of the field to take the Henry VIII Novices Chase. Photograph: Steven Cargill/racingfotos.com/Shutterstock

Hurricane Pat eased nearly six lengths clear of Soldier Reeves and was cut to around 25-1 for the Supreme Novice Hurdle, the opening race of next year’s Cheltenham festival.

“It was a very good race on paper, but he did a very nice piece of work last week and that was enough to bring him here,” Josh Moore, who trains the winner with his father, Gary, said. “I was thinking he might want further but the work was with the horse that won here yesterday [Macktoad] and he kind of made me think two miles would be for him.

“You have to think along the lines of the Supreme and whether or not that might be a bit much for him, we’ll find out. We can certainly gear towards that all the same.”

At Aintree, Ben Pauling’s Twig, at 18-1, edged out Mr Vango, the 9-2 favourite, in the final stride of the three-and-a-quarter mile Becher Chase over a circuit and a half of the Grand National course.