Few horses had unluckier seasons than Quel Esprit last term but the Willie Mullins trained gelding did return to action at Naas today with an easy win in the Become A Naas Annual Member Chase.

Returned the 8/13 favourite, Quel Esprit raced prominently throughout and made virtually all of the running from halfway to comfortably defeat Foildubh by seven lengths. Saludos was the winner’s closest pursuer in the straight but faded into third place on the run-in.

Afterwards Mullins, well aware of the gelding’s uninspiring form figures of ‘ffb’, said “Quel Esprit looks to have got his confidence back after that. However, I’m mindful of what happened him last year when we stepped up him to Grade 1 company and he fell 3 times - if we could get numbers rather that letters beside his name, that would be the main aim!”

“If he keeps his jumping together we could have a nice season and we’ll try to find a graded race on the way to Christmas with him now. We’ll go up in grade slowly though. He schooled well at home recently and that translated that to the racecourse today - I think he wants a trip and wouldn’t mind three miles.”