Wincanton Saturday

THIS was beginning to look like the last-chance saloon for Goshen (Gary/Jamie Moore), but he proved the nay-sayers wrong in some style by winning the Grade 2 Betway Kingwell Hurdle by a margin of 22 lengths from a pair who had already bagged Grade 2 races this season.

It’s clear enough that neither Song For Someone (Tom Symonds/Aidan Coleman) nor Navajo Pass ran close to the level they had when winning the International Hurdle and Haydock’s Champion Hurdle Trial respectively, but it’s impossible to view the exploits of the winner in anything other than a positive manner.

The son of Authorized was weak enough in the market at 10/3, and he was receiving weight from his main rivals, but he travelled with all his old zest in contrast to the rank way he went about things in the International, and this was a clear personal best after a difficult year.

Champion Hurdle

The authoritative manner of his win is backed up by an excellent time figure, and his presence adds a great deal of intrigue to the Champion Hurdle picture.

Whether Goshen consents to travel as kindly at Cheltenham as he did here remains to be seen, and it’s worth pointing out that he scoped badly more than once in the autumn, meaning that he was geared up for a couple of engagements he was forced to miss, and that might have exacerbated the way he performed at Cheltenham in December.

He showed here what he could do with a better preparation, and the proximity of this race to the Cheltenham Festival is certainly not a drawback for him.