Fact To File proved a different class to his rivals when running out a comfortable winner of the Ryanair Chase at Cheltenham.
Willie Mullins’ eight-year-old opted for the intermediate contest instead of the Gold Cup and his charge was ridden by Mark Walsh in a field of nine.
The JP McManus-owned gelding jumped and travelled neatly throughout and looked perfectly poised to put the race to bed at the foot of the hill, something he did with ease when cantering across the line nine lengths ahead of Heart Wood.
Mullins said of the 6-4 favourite: “It was a hell of a field and he won very easily, he’s a proper horse.
“They went a good gallop and he just stayed with them and got his jumping right and coming off the bend I don’t think Mark was worried, he just needed to get over the last two fences and he did that well.
“It’s a surprise the manner he has won it and I was hoping coming here he was good enough to win it and he would win it, but when you’ve got Il Est Francais and Protektorat in the field, they are good horses and horses of a lifetime for some people. He was able to beat them like that, which is huge.
“Every day of the week, I think he would be the one to give Galopin Des Champs the biggest problems, I do, and he was in the Gold Cup but we felt it was better to bide our options and let him come to this race.
“He could be a Gold Cup horse next year and he will be a year older, we just felt at this stage of his career, a hard race in the Gold Cup if it turned up soft is not what he wants. That was the way our thinking was all season and JP was very pro that, we just didn’t want him to have a hard race in a Gold Cup, as sometimes that can ruin a horse’s career.
“I’m not going to talk about two-year plans after Lossiemouth, but I imagine that’s where he will be going next year.”
Fact To File was beaten just under five lengths by Galopin Des Champs at Leopardstown last time and Mullins added: “Probably some people felt after the Irish Gold Cup that he didn’t really see it out and that maybe the Gold Cup was a year too soon.
“I heard someone say Mark had a job pulling him up and that is extraordinary.
Mark Walsh celebrates after Fact To File’s Ryanair win
“He was a lot more mature there.”
The manner of the victory was not unexpected for McManus, who said: “I had a little on today, I couldn’t let him run loose! He’s a nice horse.
“I wasn’t surprised how he did it to be honest, it was very straightforward.”
