Big Zeb leads Irish one-two as Master Minded flops in Champion Chase

Big Zeb got his act together for the first time on this side of the Irish Sea when achieving a convincing success in the Queen Mother Champion Chase under Barry Geraghty. He benefited from a poor effort by the hot favourite, Master Minded, winner of this race for the past two years. The second Irish-trained winner on St Patrick's Day, Big Zeb made up for the crashing fall he took in this race 12 months ago and also for his poor fourth behind Twist Magic at Sandown in December. Always travelling well behind the leaders, he went past Forpadydeplasterer on the run to the last and ran on to score by six lengths at 10-1. Master Minded, sent off at 4-5, seemed strangely lacking in his usual speed and a couple of sloppy mistakes didn't help his chances. Although he was still in contention at the second-last fence, Ruby Walsh was already having to row away and the pair eventually faded into fourth place. The winning trainer, Colm Murphy, has tasted Cheltenham success before with Brave Inca in the 2006 Champion Hurdle, but he was still unable to contain his delight and, in memorable scenes, he skipped and jumped across the track to meet his winner after the race. "He jumped really well," said Murphy. "Like I say, we've been learning all year about him and he's kind of a proper horse this year. He was a second-season novice taking on the big boys last year. He wasn't right before Sandown and we said as much. We knew that wasn't his true running. "He takes a bit of knowing and Barry knows him really well. We were coming here fresh and well and I think that made all the difference. We've had a fantastic run-up to this race and everything went right. It's incredible." Clive Smith, the disappointed owner of Master Minded, said: "He was perfectly all right before the race. Today was perhaps just a day off and he wasn't on his mettle. But we'll be back." Walsh's first reaction was to suggest that the eight-year-old may not have appreciated the going, which is unusually fast by the standards of this meeting.