The season before last, the Paul Nicholls-trained Le Roi Miguel was one of the best of the two-mile novices, but the French-bred’s second campaign over fences was compromised by an inability to breathe properly. Close-season surgery, however, has demonstrably restored Le Roi Miguel’s engine to perfect working order.Under Ruby Walsh, the six-year-old tracked the pace set by Enzo De Baune in yesterday’s two-and-a-half mile Grade Two contest and then slipstreamed Hand Inn Hand and Farmer Jack as they detached themselves from the pack before the turn to the final straight. “He galloped every step of the way to the line, and past it too. Two fences from home Walsh pressed the turbo boost, and even he was surprised by the result as Le Roi Miguel powered 20 lengths clear.

Yesterday’s success was his first in Britain on his second visit to ride since scoring on Hit Royal at Market Rasen in September 2002.Persian Waters, making his fencing debut at the age of eight after 18 months off because of physical problems, leapt his rivals silly. Particularly, his extravagant showboating, ears-pricked bound over the ditch in front of the stands drew a gasp of admiration from the watchers. “He jumped for fun,” said Gallagher, “a bit big if anything.”An hour later came another performance with the wow factor. The rider was given a rousing reception as he came in on Persian Waters after the two- and-a-half-mile novices’ chase and, punching the air, was clearly on a maximum high.Persian Waters is owned by Paul Green and trained by James Fanshawe, who provided Gallagher with a lifeline in the shape of a win in the 2002 Champion Hurdle on Hors La Loi III after his first fall from grace.

I’m just thrilled to bits.” The 35-year-old came back to the saddle in August as first jockey to Fran?s Doumen and has made a considerable mark in France, with 16 winners there. “I just can’t say how happy I am and what this means to me,” Gallagher said, “to ride a winner back here in England, and for the old firm This is a big day for me. Even if that hurdle were surmounted, the crop would have to go through two years of trials in Britain, and then get government approval – a process that will be fought by protesters.Last week Bayer said it would not even try to carry out trials in Britain until the Government took strong measures to stop protesters pulling up the plants. And ministers now believe that there is no market for the crops, so they would not be grown even if approval were granted.Yesterday, Pete Riley, director of the anti-GM campaign Five Year Freeze, said: “This development makes it even less likely that modified crops will ever be grown in Britain. The Government still gave approval for the maize to be grown – the only one given to a GM crop in Britain. But shortly afterwards, Bayer announced it would not proceed, saying that the controls on how the maize would be cultivated were too strict.GM advocates presented this as a temporary setback, arguing that new varieties could be grown as early as 2006. Now, however, industry, ministers and environmentalists agree that the abandonment of the last applications means it will be the end of this decade, at the earliest , before any GM crops can be grown.Any new application will now have to go through a long process to be approved.

First, it will have to be passed by the European Union, an unlikely prospect as it has a moratorium on GM crops. The trials – the results of which were reported last year – found that the way GM beet and spring oilseed rape were cultivated damaged wildlife more than the growing of conventional crops (the results for winter oilseed rape are due to be published shortly).The trials appeared to clear GM maize, but the IoS revealed that the verdict was invalid because a pesticide central to the clearance was about to be banned. At that time, 53 different GM seeds were awaiting approval, and widespread cultivation was assumed to be only a year away.The Government had put all its weight behind the technology, aiming to make Britain its “European hub”, and Tony Blair privately dismissed opposition as a “flash in the pan”.But rising public concern forced the Government to introduce a moratorium while tests were carried out on the effects on the environment of growing GM crops. Supporters of the technology say this will put back their commercial use in Britain for years.