Supreme winner roars back to life and is slashed into ODDS-ON for Arkle after perfect comeback

THE MARKET for next year’s Arkle at the Cheltenham Festival took a drastic turn after two big Christmas results.

Facile Vega and Marine Nationale have been vying for favouritism since the latter won last season’s Supreme.

PA

Marine Nationale was foot perfect on chasing debut[/caption]

The former made a perfect start over fences at Navan in November and stole the top of the market narrowly as a result.

That was until Boxing Day, when he empathically blotted his copybook when finishing last at Leopardstown.

Those with Facile Vega antepost slips were sent into further meltdown when Marine Nationale jumped his rivals silly on chasing debut less than 24 hours later.

Bookmakers ran for the hills, with Paddy Power going 4-5 (from 7-4), while pushing out Facile Vega to 9s.

Punters were suitably impressed too, with X going into meltdown following his win.

One said: “monster alert,” , while another said: “show me an aeroplane without showing me an aeroplane.”

Another said: “He’s a natural to fences, that was very impressive.”

One more added: “That was a dynamite debut.”

The Arkle could now be at the mercy of Marine Nationale, who has the beating of all his closest rivals in the market with a line through Facile Vega.

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