Buveur D'Air can be backed at 10-1 to get his Champion Hurdle crown back at Cheltenham next March after a shock comeback defeat at Newcastle.
The dual Champion Hurdler, who took a dramatic third-flight fall at the National Hunt Festival last spring, went off at 2-13 to gain a third successive victory in the Grade 1 Betfair Fighting Fifth Hurdle at Gosforth Park.
Jockey Barry Geraghty was content to let Henry Brooke and 16-1 chance Cornerstone Lad turn for home with an eight-length lead.
Buveur D’Air delivered his challenge after the final flight but couldn’t get past Cornerstone Lad, who clung on by a short head to give Middleham-based Micky Hammond the biggest win of his training career.
The beaten favourite, who returned lame to the unsaddling enclosure, was found to have sustained a cut to a leg, and his trainer Nicky Henderson said: “He’s quite sore.
“We’ve just to hope that it’s sorted out and that there are no issues with it.
“We just don’t know at the moment - let’s talk to everybody and see what happens.”
Ladbrokes, who quoted Buveur D’Air at 4-1 favourite at the start of trading, pushed the eight-year-old out to 10-1.
The Willie Mullins-trained Saldier is now the Magic Sign’s 4-1 market leader.
At Newbury, 20-year-old Ben Jones, who joined the professional jockeys’ ranks just three months ago, drove De Rasher Counter to victory in the Ladbrokes Trophy.
The 12-1 score rounded off a plentiful 24 hours for handler Emma Lavelle, whose stable star Paisley Park had made a successful return at Newbury on Friday.
“This horse is so game,” beamed Jones. “I thought I might have got there a bit early, but he kept galloping and jumping.
