Golden Ace was the shock winner in a dramatic Champion Hurdle, the feature race of the first day of the Cheltenham Festival on Tuesday, after both the previous winners Constitution Hill and State Man fell.
Winning trainer Jeremy Scott had wanted Golden Ace to run in the Mare's Hurdle but her owner Ian Gosden insisted on the biggest hurdling prize of all and was proved right.
Constitution Hill had been odds on to regain the crown he missed out on defending last year, but came to grief with three hurdles remaining, the first time in 11 races he has failed to win.
State Man then looked set to retain his title as he approached the final hurdle but he hit the dirt too, jockey Paul Townend pounding the turf with his fist in frustration.
Golden Ace's jockey Lorcan Williams was left to just guide his mount home.
Both Willie Mullins, the trainer of State Man, and Constitution Hill's handler Nicky Henderson took their respective blows graciously.
"She is a popular winner and it is good for racing," said Mullins, while 74-year-old Henderson admitted losing was tough but "you pick yourself up and dust yourself down and go again".
The day began with an emotional minute's applause from the 55,000 spectators -- down from 60,000 last year -- in honour of the late jockey Michael O'Sullivan.
The Irishman, who rode two winners on the opening day of the Festival two years ago, died aged 24 on February 16 this year as a result of injuries suffered after a fall at Thurles.
Odds-on favourite Kopek des Kordes won the race which was named in honour of O'Sullivan, with jockeys also wearing red and white armbands, the colours of his native county Cork.
Townend eased home on the Mullins-trained Kopek des Bordes to deny William Munny, who carried the same colours O'Sullivan wore when winning in 2023.
Townend touched the armband as he crossed the line and broke down when asked what it meant to win the race named after O'Sullivan.
Charlie McCarthy -- who co-owns the winner with his sons -- had his own health problems in February, having a cancerous kidney removed.
He had vowed to doctors that if they forbade him to travel to Cheltenham he would swim the Irish Sea instead.
He said tearfully in his darkest moments Kopek des Bordes had kept him going.
