Lossiemouth 6-4 for Champion Hurdle after delivering monstrous performance to swat aside Teahupoo in Hatton's Grace

Lossiemouth put herself firmly in control of the Champion Hurdle picture courtesy of a sublime and rather unceremonious annihilation of Teahupoo's quest for a third successive Hatton's Grace Hurdle victory.

With three of the four runners in the Bar One Racing-sponsored €120,000 Fairyhouse Grade 1, Gordon Elliott held the tactical key to the 2m4f contest. However, despite Beacon Edge setting the fractions and Maxxum sitting on Lossiemouth's girth early on, neither of which made Paul Townend's life any easier on the keen-running 4-7 favourite, their combined efforts weren't nearly enough. She was simply far too good.

Sam Ewing led two from home on Teahupoo, but Townend was waiting menacingly in his slipstream. A year after being lured into challenging Elliott's 2024 Stayers' Hurdle hero too early aboard Impaire Et Passe, he wasn't going to make the same mistake again on a precocious mare blessed with an abundance of pace.

Poised like a hawk hovering over prey, Townend delayed his challenge as long as he dared although, on a day when slow early fractions had played a part in earlier upsets in the Royal Bond and the Drinmore, he made sure to allow for a mistake at the last flight. Finally, inside the wings of the final hurdle, he put his condemned rival out of its misery.

Lossiemouth produced a performance of the highest quality in the Hatton's Grace HurdleCredit: Seb Daly (Getty Images)

Lossiemouth pinged it and cruised nearly four lengths clear with only the most subtle of squeezes from her impish rider. It was a statement performance that confirmed fairly unequivocally just how dangerous the athletic five-year-old is with a 7lb mares' allowance, and it prompted her trainer Willie Mullins to raise the spectre of a possible encounter with Constitution Hill in the Ladbrokes Christmas Hurdle.

The Closutton maestro didn't commit to anything but it's not beyond the realm of possibility that Lossiemouth could even be a more likely starter there than last year's beleaguered Kempton winner.

"Once it came down to a speed race I had no doubt we were going to win," Mullins mused after securing his fourth Hatton's Grace, nine years after Arctic Fire's success under Ruby Walsh.

"She has gears, she is bred for speed and that always comes in handy when they are going steady. I couldn't believe they went so slow."

Lossimouth jumps ahead of Teahupoo in the Hatton's Grace Hurdle at Fairyhouse on Sunday

Lossiemouth jumps the last ahead of Teahupoo in the Hatton's Grace Hurdle at FairyhouseCredit: Patrick McCann (racingpost.com/photos)

Paddy Power reacted by hardening Lossiemouth into 6-4 (from 5-2) favouritism for the Unibet Champion Hurdle, a race for which Mullins also has reigning title-holder State Man as well as Mystical Power, who bombed out in the Fighting Fifth at Newcastle. Throw in Saturday's smooth Fairyhouse winner Anzadam and it feels like he might once more find himself attempting to disprove that old gem about probably having no Derby horses if you have four.

With State Man the only one with a nailed down next target, the Matheson Hurdle at Leopardstown, plans are fluid, and a repeat bid for Lossiemouth in the International Hurdle at Cheltenham is not a given.

"She might go to the International Hurdle or to Kempton for the Christmas Hurdle," he said. "The International is a Grade 2 so I want to look at the conditions – that might not suit us. It may be that Kempton is the one to go for with her and let Anzadam go to Cheltenham. We'll see."

Elliott expressed himself delighted with Teahupoo, suggesting time might prove he faced a particularly formidable task.

Mullins reiterated how taken he was with Anzadam by describing Saturday's performance as "awesome", although he was none the wiser about Mystical Power's Newcastle blowout.

Willie Mullins is congratulated by racegoers after Lossiemouth's easy win in the Hatton's GraceCredit: Patrick McCann

Lossiemouth made her Irish debut when bolting up in the Grade 3 juvenile hurdle on this card in 2022. This was her first start at the track since then, and it was also her first time in open Grade 1 company. She met the challenge rather emphatically.

Surprisingly, this was only Townend's second Hatton's Grace success, 14 years after guiding Hurricane Fly to victory over Solwhit and Voler La Vedette, while the four-runner field was the smallest to go to post since Voler La Vedette herself won a year later, and only once, when Dorans Pride triumphed in 1994, has there been a smaller field. None of that is Townend's concern.

The only real concern he had was switching off his classy mount, and she did make a hames of the fourth-last when he was trying to keep a lid on her.

"She is a very good mare" said Townend. "We didn't go much of a gallop so she was fresh, and at the fourth-last I had to give her a breather, so that was down to me, not her. I didn't need a big jump at that stage – it was far enough out to be racing. I was able to fill her up after that."

Lossiemouth and Paul Townend after their victory in the Hatton's Grace HurdleCredit: Alan Crowhurst (Getty Images)

Asked about the feeling as he toyed with Teahupoo from the second-last, Townend spoke of the intangible sense of Lossiemouth always being there for him.

"You can't help but make sure it is there without lighting her up, but any time I gave her half a little squeeze just to see if it was there, it was always there," he said. State Man, of course, is also always there for him, and one day he won't be able to be there for one of them. That's what you call a first-world problem.

Unibet Champion Hurdle (Cheltenham, March 11)
Paddy Power: 6-4 Lossiemouth, 4 Sir Gino, 9-2 Constitution Hill, State Man, 12 Brighterdaysahead, 33 bar

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