The Cheltenham hill is where National Hunt’s champions are judged, and the climb to the line found Chacun Pour Soi wanting in the Queen Mother Champion Chaseon Wednesday. Instead it was a “mad” mare called Put The Kettle On who rose to the challenge, as she has every time she has raced here, adding the two-mile all-aged championship to her win in the Arkle Trophy for novices 12 months ago. This was a fourth visit to the Old course at Cheltenham for Put The Kettle On, and a fourth win over track and trip. Henry de Bromhead’s mare led for much of the way but was headed by Chacun Pour Soi, the odds‑on favourite, on the run to the final fence, only to power up the hill as Willie Mullins’s runner visibly faltered. At Leopardstown in December, Put The Kettle On was eight lengths behind Chacun Pour Soi, who galloped all the way to the line at a pancake-flat track. Uphill to the post here, however, she made up that distance and more to win by half a length from Nube Negra, with Chacun Pour Soi third. Aidan Coleman, Put The Kettle On’s regular jockey, spoke at length afterwards about her qualities while saying even he is not entirely sure why she runs so well at Cheltenham in particular. “I don’t know to be honest, it’s a tough one,” Coleman said. “But her form here is better than anywhere else and, as a two-mile chaser, if you’re going to have form around a track this is where you want it. “Her tenacity and attitude is something to behold. She doesn’t give you anything easy but when you are on her side, you couldn’t have a more willing partner. “Chacun Pour Soi looked pretty solid coming into and there weren’t many question marks about him, only the track and that was the only thing we had massively in our case. We had a perfect run round and we love the track and the hill, it was just our day today.” De Bromhead has now won the day’s feature event on the first two days of the meeting, and he has two live chances on Friday to become the first trainer to win the three most prestigious races – Champion Hurdle, Champion Chase and Gold Cup – at the same Festival. “How she improves for being here. Did we feel it? I don’t know, but in mid-February I was probably leaning towards the mares’ chase [on Friday]. Then I spoke to the owners and we looked at the stats of Arkle winners [going on to win the Champion Chase], it’s her trip and she loves the course, so we thought we’d give it a lash and see. “She’s a bit crackers the whole time, to be honest, she’s just quite wild, but a real character. She’s nuts, but in a great way.” Rachael Blackmore, who will ride A Plus Tard, the third-favourite, for De Bromhead in the Gold Cup on Friday, registered her second Grade One win of the meeting . She followed up Honeysuckle in Tuesday’s Champion Chase, by steering the trainer’s Bob Olinger to an easy success in the Ballymore Novice Hurdle. She completed a double on the day with a beautifully judged frontrunning ride on Sir Gerhard, who recently joined Mullins from Gordon Elliott, in the Champion Bumper at the other end of the card, but had no luck in between as she was unseated twice and suffered a fall on Embittered, the favourite, in the Grand Annual Chase. Blackmore is the meeting’s leading rider after two days with three winners in all, one more than Jack Kennedy and Paul Townend, who took the Brown Advisory Novice Chase on Wednesday on the 1-4 favourite, Monkfish. The winner of the Albert Bartlett Novice Hurdle 12 months ago is as short as 5-1 for next year’s Gold Cup after his latest Festival success. A mistake at the last was Monkfish’s only significant blemish on his round of jumping. “Once I got over my fright at the last, I was impressed how he pulled away going to the winning post,” Mullins, Monkfish’s trainer, said. “His performance here last year was fantastic and he’s come back and boosted it. I imagine that [the Gold Cup] will be his aim.”