SAM Curling sold Summerville Boy for £130,000 last May at the Goffs UK Spring Sale. He and owner Richard Downes enjoyed a great turn with their Killarney bumper winner. Bought for €4,000 as a three-year-old at the Tattersalls Ireland August Sale, he left them quite a profit when he was sold to Roger Brookhouse.

Trained now by Tom George, the six-year-old son of Sandmason (Grand Lodge) won his first hurdle race at the weekend, but it was no ordinary hurdle race. The Grade 1 32Red Tolworth Hurdle had been won in the three previous years by L’Ami Serge, Yorkhill and Finian’s Oscar, and this is a measure of the regard in which the race is held. Previously Summerville Boy was runner-up in a Grade 2 novice hurdle at Cheltenham in November.