Hurricane Pat sweeps to Sandown success for in-form Moore team

Gary and Josh Moore’s dream spell at Sandown continued on Saturday when Hurricane Pat played himself into the Cheltenham Festival equation with a facile victory in the opening Betfair Exchange Claremont Novices’ Hurdle.

An impressive course and distance scorer last month, the five-year-old was sent off 7-2 in the Listed event and with Philip Hobbs and Johnson White’s heavy favourite Sober Glory failing to live up to his reputation, Hurricane Pat was left to saunter home to a five-and-a-half length success over Dan Skelton’s Cheltenham winner Soldier Reeves.

Josh Moore said: “He’s won very impressively and I was quite confident when we made the entry this was the right race on paper.

“It was a very good race on paper but he did a very nice piece of work last week and that was enough to bring him here. I was thinking he might want further but the work was with the horse that won here yesterday, Macktoad, and he kind of made me think two miles would be for him.

“We always thought he might want better ground as well, so today was a bit of a worry but Caoilin (Quinn, jockey) seemed to think he was better on this ground today.

“He was a nice horse last year but he has strengthened up a lot over the summer and his mind has grown up as well, he’s taking everything in his stride nicely. He won his two bumpers and we’ve been very patient with him and he’s paid his way now over hurdles.”

Hurricane Pat was introduced into the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle market at 25-1 by Paddy Power, with connections entitled to start dreaming of the future.

Moore added: “He’s won a Listed race so he’s obviously got potential. We’ll see how he comes out of today because he is a horse we can’t over race.

“You have to think along the lines of the Supreme and whether or not that might be a bit much for him we’ll find out. We can certainly gear towards that all the same.

“It’s a shame the Tolworth isn’t here and there is always Aintree (Formby Novices’ Hurdle). If the Tolworth had been here we would definitely be here. He’s won that so nicely though that I wouldn’t be in a rush to run again.”