GRAND NATIONAL HERO Noble Yeats made a spectacular return to Aintree in claiming the Boylesports Many Clouds Chase.

Emmet Mullins’ Irish raider was a 50-1 outsider in April when he provided amateur Sam Waley-Cohen with a fairytale farewell to the saddle and also became the first seven-year-old since Bogskar in 1940 to win the world’s most famous steeplechase.

However, he was much more respected in the market this time around and was gambled into 3-1 second-favourite shortly before the off.

Content to stalk the fancied Ahoy Senor for the majority of the journey, it was at the second-last when Noble Yeats was set alight by his new pilot Sean Bowen.

The duo put the race to bed in a matter of strides as he recorded a success over the admirable Dashel Drasher, who was up with the pace alongside Lucinda Russell’s well-held favourite throughout in the hands of Rex Dingle.

Elsewhere Facile Vega maintained his unbeaten record with a foot-perfect display on his eagerly-anticipated hurdling debut at Fairyhouse.

As a son of six-time Cheltenham Festival heroine Quevega, the Willie Mullins-trained five-year-old carried all before him in the bumper sphere last season – winning each of his four starts including big-race triumphs at the Dublin Racing Festival, the Cheltenham Festival and the Punchestown Festival.

He was unsurprisingly a very short price to make a successful transition to the jumping game in division two of the Fingal Ravens Raceday Maiden Hurdle – and anyone tempted by the odds of 1-9 will have had few concerns.

With Paul Townend taking over in the saddle from the trainer’s son, Patrick, Facile Vega travelled supremely well and jumped accurately throughout the two-mile contest, before starting to go through the gears swinging for home.

Once given his head, the son of Walk In The Park readily extended clear, passing the post with 14 lengths in hand over An Mhi.