Ladbrokes 1965 Chase report and replay: Jango Baie impresses

Winner of the Arkle at the Cheltenham Festival last season, Nicky Henderson’s charge was sent off the 9/4 favourite and rarely looked in any trouble.

Turning in he was chasing the front-running Gidleigh Park and past him soon after straightening up.

From there the only dangers were the two fences in front and he was fluent at the first of them and spectacular at the next, thundering clear of the runner-up to score by nine lengths.

Pic D’Orhy, winner of the race for the last two seasons, was well beaten into third with Il Est Francais, who raced second for a long way, pulling up around the home turn.

Sky Bet and Paddy Power cut the winner to 4s from 12s for the King George on Boxing Day and 7s from 20s for the Ryanair Chase.

“He was great, I was very happy with him there. There was lots to like,” the winning rider told ITV Racing.

“He jumped great in what turned out to be quite a tactical race. The lead changed a few times but I thought it was a high-class field to go and do that to – so I’m happy."

“I was delighted to see what we have on our hands if I’m honest. If he’s all good tomorrow we can start looking forward," Henderson added on Sky Sports Racing.

“I wasn’t in a rush with him through the early parts of the autumn and we thought this was the place to be but I wasn’t exactly in a rush to get him here so it was nice to see him ready enough to do that.

“Hopefully we can now start thinking about the next plan – and it’s a fairly obvious one – and I think we have to move to Kempton and have a look at it. I know he won the Arkle but he's not a two-miler, he showed us that on that day, I don’t know how he won at Cheltenham.

“This looked the obvious starting point to give you time to get into the King George if that was going to be the route so we came here to give us the option. It might have been optimistic but now looks like it might have been the right thing to do.”

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