Player has his confidence back

We're well familiar with the Paul Holden silks being carried to victory by Eoin Doyle trained horses but it was Philip Rothwell that provided the Kilkenny owner with a success in the Tipperary Handicap Chase via the Paul Townend ridden Decade Player

The victorious Gamut gelding shipped a heavy fall at Ballinrobe in August and indeed he didn't jump with much aplomb when sixth at the Listowel Festival since.

However with a rating to give him prospects in this sphere, Townend made all on the five-year-old with Musawama in pursuit.

Things didn't change much throughout the two mile one furlong contest and in the end Decade Player ran out a comfortable six lengths to the good from his aforementioned rival.

The others never really got a look in but Black Cache did alright in the circumstances to come home in third, a length and a quarter adrift whilst the winner's fellow Rothwell representative Ard Agus Fada came home well to take the fourth spot.

Rothwell said of his nicely supported 5/1 winner: "I expected him to win at Listowel but he jumped terribly.

"He's been schooled by Andrew Ring since, over a cross-country course, and it's helped to get his confidence back." (TW & EM)