Here's what Willie Mullins had to say on Fact To File's demolition job in the preceding Grade one race: "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."