Jonbon maintains unbeaten run over fences in Kingmaker with latest win at Warwick

Seen off as an overwhelming favorite against just one rival – Dan Skelton’s Calico – after two others retired in the morning, his trademark seemed to be absent at times.

Aidan Coleman sent Nicky Henderson’s protege an early lead and while he made things easy enough, he couldn’t get away from Calico.

Halfway down the backstretch, Harry Skelton sensed an opportunity and sent Calico up the inside of Jonbon, hitting the nearest fence with a perfect stride and soon found himself three lengths in front of him.

It took Jonbon a few jumps to realize he had a race ahead of him and Coleman was happy to challenge around Calicos on the final corner outside.

Once at the front the race was never in doubt but it was quite professional to win by five and a half lengths.

“It was a preparatory run and we knew we had a lot to do,” said Coleman.

“We started him at school the other morning and he started school very well, but he was very fresh.

“He jumped great there again, I just came down to that fence there and we went an honest canter and I didn’t want to push too much considering it’s a class. Harry lit his and gave him wings, and though he made no mistake, Harry made his way and I chased after him for a bit.

“But I was always quite confident out of a three-quarters mile – I hit the next three fences well and got to bed well. He was probably a bit rusty but he won well down the line and I was happy with him.

“It’s exactly the same (as Haydock did last year). We come here with something to work on and are not specifically trained for it. Look he came here to win and we were sweet with him but it’s a process for the Arkle and that’s why we’re here. It was the same at Haydock last year.

“He likes good ground and he was good on it. I was very happy with him. It was still a good performance and he got the job done.”

As he switched to the right on his fences, he added: “He’s only done it once and that happens frequently in that third outside the stands. You come in on a corner and he was a little bit right there.

“It’s probably looking a little worse than it was and if you straighten up you need to get him back close to the lead and get him up front. He can shimmy to the left every now and then, he’s just very clever and accurate and sometimes he just adjusts it in one direction.”

Henderson was at Newbury where he said: ‘I’ll look at the positive side. Because he had such easy races, I think he was caught off guard when the other horse attacked him.

“He just kind of shook his head. It won’t hurt him as he hasn’t raced since Aintree last year. I will see it positively.

“That was his preparation and it seems it shook him a bit, but I’ll speak to Aidan.”

Sir Anthony McCoy, representing winning owner JP McManus, said: “They’re all contenders and we’ll have to see but he’s being trained by a man who knows more about training horses like this than I do.

“He was happy with it and you would imagine he’s looking at March and not today. I’d say he was just up for one run – he looked a little rusty. The Arkle is in March, not today.

“He won’t win an arkle running like that, but that’s not the arkle. I wasn’t worried about watching him and he actually ended up winning quite well.

“He’s great, he won and he will have learned a little bit more from that today.

“The Arkle will be different and he has to be smarter, but the man who trains him knows what he’s doing and you just let him do his thing.

“March is what he’s trained for.”