Barry Geraghty suffered one of the biggest disappointments of his career when Sprinter Sacre surrendered his unbeaten record in last season’s Desert Orchid Chase, but while the look on his face after this year’s race here on Saturday confirmed that his ride on Special Tiara had also been one to remember, it was for more positive reasons.

Geraghty was still buzzing with adrenaline as he walked back to weigh in after steering Special Tiara to a two-and-a-quarter-length success, although his main role had seemed to be to point his partner in the right direction and then let him get on with it. Few horses can attack and clear a fence like the front-running Special Tiara, who tore around Kempton’s sharp two-mile circuit with almost reckless exuberance, reminiscent of the horse in whose honour Saturday’s race was named.

Several of the seven-year-old’s jumps, and in particular his leap on the far side opposite the grandstand, drew gasps from the crowd, and even when Special Tiara made a slight mistake three out, it seemed to galvanise rather than empty him. Balder Succes, the 11-10 favourite, was the only opponent who made any ground on the leader in the straight, but Special Tiara stayed on to win.

“I had a great time,” Geraghty, riding the winner for Henry de Bromhead, said afterwards. “It’s rare that you get a horse that has the guts to do what he did, they usually get a bit tentative.

“That’s how Henry told me to ride him, to let him rip and use his jumping. He definitely stays really well and he’s a real two-miler, galloping, jumping and staying, and the jumping is the key with him.”

Special Tiara was a Grade One winner as a novice in 2013 when Sire De Grugy, last season’s Queen Mother Champion Chase winner, was among his beaten opponents in Aintree’s Maghull Novice Chase. This was his first success in 10 subsequent starts, however, and Kempton’s easy circuit could have been designed for him.

The festival in March will offer a much sterner test and he remains an outsider at around 20-1 to win the Champion Chase but after this performance many punters will be eagerly anticipating the spectacle if he sets out to defy Cheltenham’s two-mile chase course in similar style.

Sprinter Sacre and Sire De Grugy, neither of whom has had a race so far this season, remain the uneasy market leaders for the Champion Chase at 4-1 and 5-1 respectively, but Uxizandre, the third-favourite on Saturday morning, is out to 16-1 after beating only one opponent home in the day’s feature event in Ireland, the Grade One Paddy Power Dial-A-Bet Chase at Leopardstown. Ballycasey, from the Willie Mullins yard, also ran poorly in the same race, but his stablemate Twinlight – who had Special Tiara back in fourth when successful in the Fortria Chase in November – emerged as the winner at 16-1.

Twinlight was pulled up when favourite for a Grade Two event at Cork a few weeks later but seemed to appreciate a change of tactics by Paul Townend, his jockey.

“At Cork, I had said to Paul: ‘I want you to go down the inner and just wing your fences,’ and two or three others kept up to him,” Mullins said. “I said to Paul today to do the same, and Paul said: ‘No, I want to go to the outside.’

“They went such a gallop today that Paul was on the outside, on his own and I think at about halfway the horse started to enjoy it and at the second fence down the back, he put in as big a jump as I ever saw around here and he landed running.”

Twinlight is a 25-1 chance for the Champion Chase with Hills, while Sizing John, who took the Grade One Future Champions Novice Hurdle at Leopardstown for De Bromhead 10 minutes after Special Tiara’s win at Kempton, is 25-1 for the Supreme Novice Hurdle at Cheltenham in March.

The only Grade One in Britain on Saturday was the Finale Junior Hurdle at Chepstow, where the French import Bristol De Mai made an impressive start to his British career with Nigel Twiston-Davies with a six-length defeat of Karezak.

Bristol De Mai is now the 10-1 second-favourite for the Triumph Hurdle behind Peace And Co, who runs in the same green colours of Simon Munir and Isaac Souede. Bivouac, who took the juvenile race on the Kempton card, is top-priced at 20-1 for the Triumph, while Vibrato Valtat, successful in the Grade Two Wayward Lad Novice Chase, is as short as 12-1 for the Arkle Trophy.