Despite being the talking horse of the pre-Festival preview circuits he was usurped as favourite shortly before the tapes went up by Paul Nicholls’ Hermes Allen and allowed to go off at 5-2.

The winner, runner-up Gaelic Warrior and Barry Connell’s Good Land were all marking each other in mid-division for the most part as Champ Kiely gave Hermes Allen a lead at the front end.

But when Hermes Allen moved up to eyeball Champ Kiely and forced the pace to quicken four out, the pack were edging their way closer to the action and as the runners descended towards two out, it was clear Paul Townend had plenty of horse underneath him.

Taking the brave route up the inner, the five-year-old was soon in the clear and Townend simply had to keep his mount’s momentum moving forwards as he scooted up the hill to return a six-and-a-half-length verdict.

Gaelic Warrior and Champ Kiely filled the podium positions for the Closutton yard, as Mullins enhanced his fine record in the race, registering his sixth victory and following up Sir Gerhard’s triumph 12 months ago.

Willie Mullins said: “I was very impressed with that. I was looking at him coming to the last going, ‘No, Danny [Mullins, on Champ Kiely], don’t pull in’, but Danny’s horse was hanging right the whole way down the back and Paul just said to himself that he could get through, and he did, but what happened when he got through was what blew me away. The change of pace down to the last and up the hill - wow. I think that was the horse’s fourth run in his life, so there’s huge improvement there. I’m looking at him as a chaser; you have to ask yourself now, do you stay hurdling? What would you do?

“You have to look at everything, including the Champion Hurdle. Yesterday I was telling Michael Buckley, we’ll have to go shopping again to find one to beat you [Constitution Hill], but maybe we haven’t yet! He’s in the same sort of mould with his speed, jumping and the way he came up the hill, so maybe we have one.

Winning jockey Paul Townend told ITV Racing: “He’s a dream ride. I was hoping coming here that he would be that ride. He’s shown me that in the couple of races he’s ran. It worked out brilliantly.

“From the first day at home, he showed us a lot on the track and not so much at home. But he’s turned a corner at home too and has been doing nice work. I was definitely delighted with him when I felt him taking off underneath me.”