Timeform's man at the course David Cleary on why East India Dock might just be the most significant winner at Cheltenham on Saturday.
Perhaps the most significant performance on Trials Day at Cheltenham came in the Grade Two juvenile hurdle.
East India Dock scored by ten lengths from the French challenger Stencil, with no fewer than 18 lengths back to the third. East India Dock looks to have run to a level that makes him well positioned to become the first winner of this race to follow up in the Triumph since Defi du Seuil in 2017.
When winning a similar event here in November, East India Dock had tracked the pace before going on two from home. This time he was asked to make the running, setting a fair pace and kicking on at the top of the hill. Shaken up in the straight, he ran on well, kept up to his work on the run-in.
Stencil looked to travel equally well but couldn't live with the winner in the straight, even though he came well clear of the rest in turn. That East India Dock could spreadeagle his field in a race where the tempo picked up relatively late, speaks very much in his favour.
East India Dock isn't the most imposing physically, which might become a factor in the longer term. For now, he sets a high standard among the juvenile ranks, his provisional Timeform rating already good enough to have won any running of the Triumph this decade.
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