My Way de Solzen (right) - just hangs on.

By Dave Ord

The eclipsing of the champions continues.

Okay Baracouda may not have won last year's Ladbrokes World Hurdle but he is the yardstick by which the last few generations have been measured.

He has been a colossus but now the light is fading.

He was never getting to the leaders this year. Trainer Francois Doumen felt he wanted softer ground.

So did My Way de Solzen.

Alan King's enthusiasm for his star was almost infectious last week. How we should have listened.

Condemned as a mudlark by some, he showed the motor still works on a quicker surface here.

Robert Thornton's mount thundered down the hill as in behind the rowing began.

But there was a stalker in Golden Cross.

Johnny Murtagh's sun-tanned face suggests he hasn't spent the winter chasing rides at Catterick but he looks to have got the hang of things nonetheless.

When he switched his partner and gave him a tap with the whip going to the last he felt he would win.

The fact he didn't was down to the courage of My Way de Solzen and the blossoming talents of Thornton.

This is his second winner of the week and in what seems a golden age of jump jockeys his progress in recent years has been significant.

He has that uncanny knack of having horses in the right place at the right time. They run and jump for him - and as we saw here - fight.

Courage is something that Fondmort has in spades and on a cold day at Prestbury Park his victory in the Ryanair Chase warmed many. He deserved this.

Here is a horse you can set your watch by over this two miles five furlongs.

He has carried big weights to victory in handicaps and was touched off in the first running of this race last year.

Not today. His fencing was as immaculate as ever and when he mastered Impek and sailed over the last the celebrations began.

They were put on ice as the petrol tank began to empty but this time there was no agonising defeat - only glorious victory.

Mick Fitzgerald was fulsome in his praise for the winner. "He means everything to me," he beamed.

"He may not be the best I've ridden but he's one of my favourite horses."

Judging by the rush to the winners' enclosure to welcome him back that is a sentiment shared by plenty at Prestbury Park.