Beef Or Salmon did his Tote Cheltenham Gold Cup prospects no harm when winning the O'Connell Warehousing Hilly Way Chase at Cork today for the second year running.
The 2-5 shot, running over an inadequate trip of two miles, had too much class for his three rivals as he landed a cosy victory over Rathgar Beau. He remains an 8-1 chance with Ladbrokes and 7-1 with William Hill for the Gold Cup in which he fell at the third fence last season.
Michael Hourigan's seven-year-old, who won the John Durkan Memorial Chase a week earlier, jumped sluggishly in the early stages as Killultagh Storm set just a steady pace. Timmy Murphy had Beef Or Salmon in second just ahead of Knife Edge but the latter jumped ahead of him twice down the back straight.
However, Beef Or Salmon warmed to his task as the field turned for home with three fences to jump. The tiring Killultagh Storm lost all chance when pecking after the third last leaving Knife Edge ahead of Beef Or Salmon, but Rathgar Beau soon became the main danger to the favourite.
They collided on jumping the penultimate fence with Beef Or Salmon landing awkwardly, but he quickly recovered. Beef Or Salmon began to show his class on the run to the final fence where he took over the lead before running on strongly on the flat to win by three-and-a-half lengths.
Knife Edge was third a further four-and-a-half lengths away.