AN emotional Malcolm Jefferson ended a 17-year wait for a Cheltenham Festival winner after landing the Pertemps Final with Cape Tribulation.

The North Yorkshire trainer welled up with tears in the winner’s enclosure after watching his eight-year-old (14-1) hold off Catch Me by three quarters of a length in the £70,000 Listed three mile contest.

His third Festival success, and his first since Dato Star won the Champion Bumper in 1995, Norton-based Jefferson said: “It means everything. You get up every morning for it, don’t you?

“We don’t have a lot of money to spend so when you get a good horse you just hope that one day you go to one of the big meetings and you can crack it. But it is the hardest thing to do in the world.

“Everything has to go right. He’s a fair horse and he deserves a decent prize. He definitely does.

“I honestly thought that if everything went right we had a great chance – and everything went right.”

Cape Tribulation was given a brilliant ride by Denis O’Regan, who held up his mount during the early stages and gradually brought him into closer order – picking off rivals steadily – before launching him at the final flight.

With Tony McCoy all out in pursuit on Catch Me behind, Cape Tribulation responded with a powerful push up the hill.

O’Regan, who previously rode Inglis Drever to World Hurdle glory and Tidal Bay to an Arkle at the Festival for former County Durham trainer Howard Johnson, said: “This horse has always promised a lot. He has a lot of class. I wasn’t sure he’d get the three miles but he got it well today.

“I wasn’t too happy early on and it took him a while to warm up, which may have preserved a bit for the end. He was in the zone jumping the last.”

He added: “Malcolm Jefferson has always been a talented trainer and he told me some time ago this was the plan for this horse.

“It means a lot to have a winner here. Malcolm has been very good and he’s a great little horse.”

Cape Tribulation won his first two novice hurdles and then the River Don at Doncaster but Jefferson said the handicapper responded by giving him a rating of 150, making him uncompetitive.

He called for separate handicaps for the north and south in a bid to even the playing field for northern runners at the big meetings.

“We won this race with Tindari in 1994, then Dato Star won the bumper a year later,” Jefferson added.

“The following year Go-Informal was touched off in the Sun Alliance Hurdle but we might as well have stayed at home in Malton with anything we’ve run since then.

“It’s very hard to come down from the north and win here. You should have separate handicaps for the north and south because we are a stone too high coming down here.”