L'eau du Sud introduced himself as a major Champion Chase contender after readily brushing aside Jonbon to deny him of a third victory in the feature Shloer Chase at Cheltenham on Friday.

The seven-year-old son of Lord du Sud arrived at Cheltenham with a record of four from six over fences having enjoyed a profitable novice campaign, which featured victories in the Arkle Challenge Trophy Trial, Henry VIII Novices' Chase and Kingmaker before creditable efforts at the Cheltenham and Aintree Festival's in both the Arkle and the Maghull Novices' Chase.

Stepping into open company for the first time, Dan Skelton's charge travelled supremely well in the hands of brother Harry, jumping with supreme accuracy from fence to fence. In contrast, Jonbon was struggling to get into any real flow in the jumping department and as L'Eau Du Sud cruised upsides Matata travelling strongly rounding the final bend, Nicky Henderson's charge was getting the squeeze along five lengths adrift.

It was all pretty simple for L'eau du Sud from there on in and following a pair of solid jumps at the final two flights, he fairly cantered up the Cheltenham hill to score by an impressive fifteen lengths from Jonbon, who made a horrible shape at the second last to firmly put an end to his chance.

J J Slevin produced what will surely be one of the recoveries of the season when he clung onto the neck of Matata following a bad blunder at the final fence, with the pair eventually having to settle for third.

Dan Skelton said: "I am not going to stand here and after time saying he has got improvement in him – we did have him ready for today because we needed to know where we stand.

"He is a very good horse, and I think he has probably improved. I am not very proud of myself last year as I shouldn't have run him at Warwick before the Arkle – it took too much out of him at Warwick and that is why he wasn't at his best in the Arkle. I didn't say it at the time as I didn't want to make excuses. That's in the past and hopefully we can make it up in the future.

"I'm not afraid to run them and they have to go out and run to know what to do. Those defeats have made him into the man he is, so there are positives to it all but I'm not going to look on the past – we'll look forward now and I am just really excited to have a real good two-miler.

L'eau du Sud was cut to 10/1 (from 33s) for the Champion Chase by Paddy Power, with Skelton confirming that as he main objective.

He added: "He'll go to the Tingle Creek now and based on what I got wrong last year, he might then go straight to the Champion Chase. I wouldn't leave the door completely shut on Ascot.

"He's had a harder race than it looks, because that ground is pretty hard work. Maybe the conditions have made him look really impressive, but we had him ready. It was a career best, which we hoped it would be whether we got beaten by Jonbon or not."

Nicky Henderson put the defeat of Jonbon down to the lack of a recent run and testing ground, with the now-nine-year-old still set to defend his crown in the Tingle Creek.

"It was hard work out there and I think he found it hard work," explained the Seven Barrows handler.

"We were a little bit behind, and I think it's fair to say you fear some, like Dan's horses are pretty fit and his served it up to us today.

"I don't think his jumping was as brilliant as it can be in that ground. We've got the run into him, which was the vital thing to do, there was no question of him not running today because of the ground – if he didn't run today, he wasn't going to get to the Tingle Creek, and we have got to get there.

"That has set him up and we'll see them all in three weeks' time."