There were few surprises after overwhelming favourite Cherokee’s Ironman lived up to expectations during the season-ending Champion of Champions races at the Bermuda Equestrian Centre at the weekend.

With top driver Tyler Lopes in the bike, Arnold Manders’s gelding came from behind to win the coveted blanket in dramatic fashion and cap a “great season” of racing at Vesey Street.

Cherokee’s Ironman, which holds all the records for a two-year-old on the quarter-mile, five-sixteenth and half-mile tracks in Indiana, as well as the three-year-old record on the half-mile and five-sixteenth tracks, got off to shaky start after posting the third-fastest time of 1:05/1 in Sunday’s first finals heat racing in the four hold.

However, Manders’s horse turned the final on its head after winning the second heat of the finals in a stunning time of 1:02/4 racing on the rail, shaving 0.2sec off the previous season’s fastest time of 1:03, which Cherokee’s Ironman achieved last month and which he equalled during Saturday’s qualifying heats for this year’s Champion of Champions final.

“He’s one of the fastest horses that has been brought here and is just getting used to the track,” Manders said. “He’s got a ton of speed and we were pleased with his performance.”

Manders admitted that he was little nervous after his horse placed third in the opening finals heat behind Simsfield Hardtimes and Brona’s Mike, from Inwood Stables.

“It got a little scary after the first heat because we were like four fifths of a second behind, and so we had to turn him loose,” Manders added.

Winning the coveted Champion of Champions was the last act of a highly successful season for Cherokee’s Ironman, which also won the Aged Stakes title during the New Year’s Day stakes races.

“It’s been a good season,” Manders said. “Tyler has done an excellent job with him all year. He has good hands and has got him out of a lot of tricky situations, especially that first heat when he was boxed in and had to pull up and let them go and then come two wide.

“That tactic is probably what won the race for us because we ended up winning by two fifths of a second.

“I am pleased with the horse and my driver. He has had a great season with something like 25 firsts, three seconds and three thirds. I don’t think that’s been done before.”

Brona’s Mike and Simsfield Hardtimes rounded off the podium finishers in this year’s Champion of Champions, which was reduced to a field of seven horses after Full Throttle Racing’s mare, Pocket de Gold, was scratched from the qualifying heats.

Inwood Stable’s mare, Abby’s Dream, with Christian Truran at the helm, beat J & A Peniston’s five-year-old mare, JustWatchMe, driven by Kirista Rabain, in the Champion of Champions consolation final.

Roque Family’s stallion, GV Crystal Ball, a former Champion of Champions winner, Manders’s gelding, Approved Credit, and Inwood Stables’ mare, Shady’s Liberty, were all retired after the weekend’s racing.

Meanwhile, in the final regular races of the 2015-16 season, David Lopes’s gelding, Pastor Paul, advanced from the 1:07/2—1:09/2 time bar, while Manders’s other gelding, A Touch of Red, and Andy Stoneham’s stallion, Custard the Dragon, both got a leg out of the 1:06/1-1:07/1 division.

J & A Peniston’s gelding, Nite Dreamer, and Inwood Stables’ gelding, Colonel’s Maestro, both came within two fifths of a second of getting a leg out of their divisions.

Lopes was the weekend’s top driver, with seven victories on three different horses.