Punjabi lands Champion spoils

Punjabi, third in the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham, ran out a taking winner of the ACCBank-sponsored version at Punchestown.

Trained by Nicky Henderson and ridden by Barry Geraghty, the five-year-old was always travelling strongly and kicked for home soon after the penultimate flight.

Sublimity still had a fair bit of ground to make up at the last and stayed on well for second, going down by three lengths to the 2-1 winner.

Salford City set a very sound gallop in the Grade One two-miler as Kalderon tracked him throughout the early stages. Geraghty - standing in for the injured Mick Fitzgerald - always had the front pair in his sights, while Sublimity and Harchibald were settled off the gallop some way behind.

The last-named pair began to make some inroads as the principals approached the second-last obstacle, but Geraghty had saved something on Punjabi and kicked clear.

Salford City quickly fell in a hole as Sublimity emerged as the only potential threat, although John Carr's eight-year-old always looked to be facing a difficult task to erode the advantage.

The 15-8 favourite kept finding for pressure and was closing Punjabi down at the line, but Geraghty had things in hand as Henderson's representative struck another blow for British-trained horses at the Festival.

Henderson said afterwards: 'We have been coming to this meeting for a long time and really enjoy it. We kept this horse back after Cheltenham especially to come here. The Aintree race if he had gone there would have been over two and half miles, which isn't his game - he is a proper two-miler and won at this meeting last year.

'Today was the first big day without Mick (Fitzgerald), but he is still helping all the team at home and he talked to Barry about the horse this morning.

'Barry would be the first to say the horse should be Mick's ride, but he has done a great job on him.'

John Carr, trainer of Sublimity, said: 'I am disappointed and I thought if we got beat it would have been by Harchibald coming from off the pace.

'I didn't think Punjabi would beat us, but I suppose he has now beaten us from behind (at Cheltenham) and in front. It was a good performance by the winner and I don't want to take anything away from him.'