Henry de Bromhead at a loss to explain A Plus Tard run

Henry de Bromhead remains keen to head to next month's Savills Chase at Leopardstown with A Plus Tard after so far failing to find an obvious reason for his disappointing return to action at Haydock on Saturday.

The Cheveley Park Stud-owned gelding was a brilliant winner of the Betfair Chase 12 months ago and was unsurprisingly a short price to double up on his first start since claiming Gold Cup glory in March.

But A Plus Tard failed to travel or jump with his trademark enthusiasm and Rachael Blackmore pulled him up early in the home straight.

De Bromhead remains perplexed by the performance – but if nothing comes to light over the coming days he will put a line through it and move on.

"Nothing (has shown up) as yet. I just saw him this morning and he trotted out perfect," the County Waterford handler said on Monday.

"We just don’t know at the moment. Our vet was doing a lot of things with him this morning and I haven’t spoken to him since.

"His bloods have been checked and his heart. His bloods were done last Monday and they were perfect, I think the racecourse checked his heart straight after and he scoped and he was perfect.

"He’s moving perfect. People were saying he was a bit reluctant to go down to the start, I didn’t see that. Genuinely I don’t know.

"Could it be as simple as the ground? I definitely felt we didn’t travel as well or jump as well as we did last year, or as we normally would, but he can do that – I thought in the Gold Cup at stages he wasn’t blowing me away.

"I just hoped like in the previous year he locked on turning in and I thought for a little bit he was starting to travel, but he got in tight to one of them and that was it.

"Rachael said she was never happy and I felt it was too bad to be down to the