Shannon Royal denied Summerville Boy a repeat victory in the End Of The Season Hurdle at Thurles.

Now a 12-year-old, Summerville Boy won the 2018 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle when trained by Tom George before switching to the care of Henry de Bromhead during a 420-day break in his career.

He ended a lengthy losing streak when taking this contest last year and was sent off the 8-13 favourite to repeat the trick after chasing home Monkfish on his most recent outing.

Summerville Boy had plenty of ground to make up on Shannon Royal jumping the last though, with Jack Kennedy having gained a seemingly decisive advantage aboard the Gordon Elliott-trained runner.

However, Shannon Royal’s stride began to shorten on the run to the line, allowing Summerville Boy to get within a neck of him at the line.

Despite the narrow margin of victory, Kennedy felt he his mount was always doing enough.

He said: “He has plenty of ability but he has his own ideas about things. He’s done it well enough but was fairly idle in front.

“He jumped the last well and was always going to hold on. He stays well and a bit of company is a help on him.”

Answering (11-10 favourite) landed the Adare Manor Opportunity Maiden Hurdle, with 4-1 shot Something Abouther prevailing in the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Mares Beginners Chase.

Lilian Bland (9-1) landed a first win under rules in the Well Done To Our Irish Cheltenham Winners Handicap Chase, the same feat Cloudy Fountain (15-2) completed in the Leugh Handicap Hurdle.

Mister Policeman ensured Cheltenham Gold Cup winners Willie Mullins and Paul Townend kept the bandwagon rolling with Grade Three glory in the Pierce Molony Memorial Novice Chase at Thurles.

The six-year-old was a winner in France before joining Mullins and he made a winning start for the yard when beating stablemate Cash Back in a Cork hurdle last April.

Switched to fences subsequently, Mister Policeman was an odds-on winner at Fairyhouse in November but let down his supporters when well held in third by Quilixios at Navan on his next start.

A six-length win at Punchestown bolstered his confidence according to jockey Paul Townend, who settled his mount in second before making his challenge with four fences to jump in his latest assignment.

The 30-100 favourite was clearly travelling best of all coming to the last and he kept on well to record a length-and-a-half victory over Thecompanysergeant.

Townend said: “He jumped fantastic for a horse that his jumping probably let him down in the past. He loved jumping and is probably getting the hang of it.

“I still think he can go out in trip, but the way he’s jumping now is getting him through. He got a lot of confidence from the last day and he’s built on that again today.

“Hopefully he can keep building, but he has a bit to go to fulfil what he was supposed to be.”

Mister Policeman was the only runner in Ireland for the Mullins-Townend team the day after another fruitful Cheltenham Festival.

Galopin Des Champs provided a perfect finale in winning the Gold Cup for a second successive year, impressing Townend with his cosy three-and-a-half-length verdict.

He said: “He won in a different way (than the previous year) and he dug in so much. We got racing at the top of the hill and on heavy ground it’s a long way home.

“They are really, really good when they can do that.”

Townend finished the week at top jockey with six winners, although he rode a couple of beaten favourites, most notably El Fabiolo who relinquished his unbeaten record in the Champion Chase.

Sent off the 2-9 favourite, El Fabiolo made a bad mistake at the fifth fence and was soon pulled up by Townend.

He added: “It was an amazing week. Obviously El Fabiolo was disappointing.

“There were a few disappointments, he was the main one, but outside that everything went great through the week.”

Tom Dreaper took the first step in continuing the family legacy as he enjoyed his maiden winner as a trainer at Thurles with Folly Master.

Dreaper is the son of Jim, from whom he has taken over the training licence, and the grandson of the great Tom Dreaper, trainer of the one and only Arkle.

Dreaper guided Arkle to three consecutive victories in the Cheltenham Gold Cup, a King George and an Irish Grand National among countless other famous triumphs.

Upon retiring in 1971, Tom handed the reins over to Jim, who has now in turn done the same and passed the baton to his own son, Tom, 40, who is named after his grandfather.

The switch happened on March 1 and so the new Dreaper in the training ranks wasted no time in getting off the mark when Folly Master won the Leugh Beginners Chase at Thurles.

Ridden by Keith Donoghue as the the 11-10 favourite, the chestnut could well have been Jim Dreaper’s last winner rather than Tom’s first as the race was an afterthought when another contest was lost due to abandonment.

“Our licences changed over on March 1 and while I’d love to say this was a master plan, it wasn’t,” said the winning trainer.

“I trained point-to-point winners in my own name in recent years to differentiate the two set ups, when selling began to get going, but this is different and is great. I’m glad to get that out of the way.

“He is a lovely horse who has improved hand over fist and this time last year he wouldn’t have run in a point-to-point so was a long way down the pecking order.

“He has got better with racing and I know this was relatively low grade stuff, but he is what my father would want and what I want and that’s a staying chaser for the future.

“I have a good few point-to-pointers to run and a handful left to run on the racecourse before going out for the summer.”

Dreaper now hopes to continue in the same vein through the spring and into the summer and build momentum as the year progresses.

He added: “We’ll definitely push on now and the way this game has gone, it is a 12-month a year job now so we’ll need to roll all jobs (winter and summer) in together. The job is changing and anything that will win a race, we’ll hope to give it a rattle.

“We have had some great traditional owners down through the years – long before I was ever thought of, and we don’t ever worry too much about the number of horses. As long as we keep the quality up and maybe push on.”

Promising novice Imagine looks set for a step into open company on his next start, with the Kinloch Brae Chase at Thurles in his sights.

A useful hurdler last season, Gordon Elliott’s charge has thrived since switching to the larger obstacles this term, scoring in heavy ground at Fairyhouse in November before successfully stepping up to Grade Two company at Punchestown a few weeks later.

Connections had suggested a run at Kempton in the Kauto Star Novices’ Chase was a possibility over the Christmas period, but with French raider Il Est Francais convincing most to stay away, the Imagine team decided to hold fire in favour of other options.

Now the Caldwell Construction Ltd-owned six-year-old will tackle two and a half miles for the first time over fences in a Group Two event won by Allaho in two of the past three years.

“He runs at Thurles in a Grade Two over two and a half miles,” said Joey Logan, racing manager for the the owners.

“We just didn’t want to run again to soon with him (after the Craddockstown) and we were thinking of going to Kempton (on Boxing Day) but we decided not to with it being three miles and with the French horse coming over.

“We didn’t want to run him over three miles at Leopardstown, so we said we would keep him fresh and the plan is to go to Thurles on January 21.

“He’s still a baby and there is a similar race coming along for Fil D’or as well. These are all young horses and they are coming along nicely and we’re very lucky to have them.”

Mouse Morris views the Make Your Best Bet At BetVictor Chase at Thurles as the perfect starting point for French Dynamite.

The consistent eight-year-old ran several big races in defeat last season, including when narrowly denied in the Paddy Power Gold Cup and when jumping the final fence in front in the Ryanair before fading into fourth.

Morris had earmarked the Clonmel Oil Chase as the place to get his season under way but testing ground has delayed him by a few weeks.

However, despite this only being Listed class, he faces five from the powerful Willie Mullins yard with two having won at Grade One level in the past.

“It’s some race isn’t it? It couldn’t be much tougher!” said Morris.

“He’s very well anyway, and we’ve got to get him started somewhere. We’ve had him ready a while, he was supposed to go to Clonmel but the ground was way too soft that day.

“We’ll see what happens and see how he gets on. We have to start somewhere.

“He’s a grand horse, I’d love a stable full of horses like him but he is just stuck between a rock and a hard place in not quite being a Grade One horse so far. The ground is a big thing for him, he always needs goodish ground.

“I have a couple of things in the back of my mind for him later in the season, but we’ll have to see how things go. He might be a horse for the Grand National, something like that.”

Mullins runs Janidil (Jody McGarvey), Classic Getaway (Danny Mullins), Capodanno (Mark Walsh) and Haut En Couleurs (Paul Townend).

Conor O’Dwyer’s El Barra, Ellmarie Holden’s Ex Patriot and Gordon Elliott’s Farouk D’alene complete the list.

Klassical Dream made a faultless start to his career over fences in the Download The BetVictor App Irish EBF Beginners Chase at Thurles.

The Willie Mullins-trained nine-year-old has an impressive seven Grade One successes over hurdles on his CV, including three back-to-back wins in the Champion Stayers Hurdle at Punchestown.

His chasing debut came over two miles and six furlongs at Thurles, where he was the 1-4 favourite under Paul Townend in a field of 11.

Making the running from the start, the gelding was foot perfect at every fence and made incredibly light work of the race to canter home nine and a half lengths ahead of his nearest rival with the rest of the field strung out behind him.

“We’d have been disappointed if we were beaten, but he was foot perfect everywhere. He was quick getting from A to B and behaved himself relatively well as well, so maybe he has grown up,” Townend said.

“I never had to interfere as he was lining up his fences from 10 strides away and I only had to encourage him and not fall off. He was good and clever and was able to sort himself out at fences as well, which was a nice thing to take from it.

“He achieved a lot over hurdles and was a high-class horse to be going chasing. He had done plenty schooling and has taken to it really well.

“He hasn’t a million miles on the clock either and has loads of fire in his belly.”

Klassical Dream’s ante-post odds for a range of chasing targets have now been trimmed with Betfair, who make him 10-1 from 20s for the National Hunt Chase, 14s from 25-1 for the Turners Novices’ Chase and 14-1 for the Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase.