East India Dock emulated his half-brother Burdett Road in winning the JCB Triumph Trial Juvenile Hurdle at Cheltenham.
Burdett Road, a leading fancy for Sunday's Greatwood Hurdle, was impressive 12 months ago and East India Dock - also representing owners The Gredley Family and trainer James Owen - arguably produced an even better performance in the Grade Two.
A smart handicapper on the flat, East India Dock had impressed on his hurdling bow at Wincanton and those who backed him from odds against down to 4/5 favourite never had a moment's worry.
Given a nice lead by the too keen Continuance and then Static, East India Dock was always on their heels and given plenty of daylight by Sam Twiston-Davies. My Noble Lord and Prairie Angel began to struggle after jumping the third last leaving East India Dock, Static and Torrent in the clear but the other pair were soon left trailing in the wake of the winner who powered clear up the hill to win by 18 lengths.
Static rallied for second, finishing half a length ahead of Torrent.
As a result, Coral made East India Dock their 8/1 favourite from 25/1 for the JCB Triumph Hurdle at Cheltenham in March while Paddy Power and Betfair Sportsbook make him their 10/1 second favourite.
"He jumped fantastic," said Twiston-Davies, "and once I got tucked in he relaxed nicely but on the flat he had lots of staying form so I wanted to be aggressive.
"I'm an excitable rider as it is without a horse like that so when I asked him to quicken turning in it was quite impressive what he did and then he took some pulling up afterwards. Great attitude and lovely way of going. We thought he'd take all the beating so we wanted to keep it as simple as possible and being how he schooled and how he ran first time, we knew if there wasn't going to be an honest gallop you could set one yourself so we wanted to be in a position where we had options and in the end it was quite nice to tuck in behind a few and produce what is a good staying performance.
"He dealt with it (the going) fine but he's got form on a lot slower as well. I don't know what the plans will be next but we look forward to him on the Friday of Cheltenham (Festival) on the New Course which is a lot more about staying and I think that will suit him really well."
Owen added: "He took to it really well. He jumped well. You can ride him how you like, he settled nicely and stayed strong through the line. He shocked me actually how good he was. We had quite a form level with the second and the third through Liam Swagger and we thought this fellow was a bit better than Liam Swagger and he duly showed it but how good we are we don't know.
"The races get stronger now but the New Course will suit this horse better, he's a real strong stayer and I should think we'll have one more run before the Triumph. It doesn't really matter where we go next; we've got a few more to run to pave the way with them first but he's done us proud there. He's the best of them at the moment.
“We’ve got another horse at home who hasn’t run over hurdles yet who was slightly higher-rated than this fella on the flat we really like called Lavender Hill Mob. He’ll be running in early December. He schools well too and likes soft ground whereas this fella likes better ground."
More from Sporting Life
Safer gambling
We are committed in our support of safer gambling. Recommended bets are advised to over-18s and we strongly encourage readers to wager only what they can afford to lose.
If you are concerned about your gambling, please call the National Gambling Helpline / GamCare on 0808 8020 133.
Further support and information can be found at begambleaware.org and gamblingtherapy.org.
Fast Results
Scores
