A Cheltenham Festival with plenty of Dorset interest was resolved yesterday with two placed finishes for county horses.

Richard Barber’s Chapoturgeon was heavily supported in the hours before the Christie’s Foxhunter Chase and lined up as a strong 3-1 favourite off the back of an impressive hunter-chase win at Newbury.

Tucked away at the back of the field for the first circuit by Barber’s son Jack, he made headway with three to jump and stayed on well to leap the last a fraction behind Ireland’s best hope Salsify.

The result was in the mangle until the final strides but in the end Rodger Sweeney’s seven-year-old kept his advantage well and denied Seaborough-based Barber a memorable festival victory.

Colin Tizzard’s Grand Vision produced an outstanding run in the three-mile Albert Bartlett Novices Hurdle to finish third, three and a quarter lengths behind Scottish winner Brindisi Breeze (7-1).

Handily placed in a small breakaway group as they turned for home, he stayed on well up the hill and almost snatched second from warm favourite Boston Bob (6-5) at the death.

The price of 33-1 in the morning seemed generous given Grand Vision’s seven-length victory in a competitive Class Two handicap at Haydock last month.

In both races he kept on doggedly and one feels he is capable of landing a listed staying race in the autumn.

There was to be no repeat of last year’s dream finale in the Johnny Henderson Grand Annual as Tizzard’s 2011 winner Oiseau De Nuit crashed out on the far side of the course shortly after the start.

Earlier in the afternoon, Tizzard’s Hell’s Bay (100-1) was unable to make any impression in a competitive Vincent O’Brien Hurdle, coming in plum last of the 26 finishers.

The festival reached its emotive peak in a memorable Gold Cup as Jonjo O’Neill’s nine-year-old Synchronised (8-1) stormed up the hill under a masterly ride from AP McCoy to depose the market favourite Long Run (7-4) and crowd favourite Kauto Star (3-1).

The farewell given by the racing public to Paul Nicholls’ superstar may well prove to be the most enduring memory of this year’s festival – he was cheered twice around the parade ring and roared down to the start by packed stands.

In the race itself he travelled well for a mile before being pulled up after dropping inexorably back through the field.

As the clean-up operation at Prestbury Park gets under way, we can look back on a festival that gave us a Champion Hurdle winner in Rock On Ruby, masterminded (if you pardon the pun) by Richard Barber at his yard near Beaminster.

On the same day we revelled in a popular novices’ handicap victory for Hunt Ball, the vastly-improved gelding owned by Sturminster Newton dairy farmer Anthony Knott.