Klassical Dream made every yard of the running to land the Grade One Dornan Engineering Christmas Hurdle at Leopardstown.
Willie Mullins' charge was a revelation stepped up to three miles at Punchestown in the spring and he made his intentions known when the tapes went up.
Paul Townend's mount was quickly into stride and into a clear lead with Flooring Porter giving chase throughout. Despite the chasing pack closing up after the third last, the front two were to dominate and going to the final flight it seemed as though the winner had everything in control.
His rider did need to keep him up to his work on the run-in as the runner-up and last year's Paddy Power Stayers' Hurdle winner renewed his challenge.
At the line two lengths separated the principals with Burning Victory, a stablemate of the winner, fully 21 lengths away in third.
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The sponsors and Betfair cut the winner to 11/4 from 4/1 for the Stayers' Hurdle at Cheltenham, Sky Bet are 2/1 from 7/2.
Their Head of Sports PR Michael Shinners said: "A really smart performance from Klassical Dream who dominated the race from the start. He looks another Willie Mullins horse with huge Cheltenham aspirations."
"We were expecting pace in the race but Paul said the horse took the initiative, jumped out the gate and went," said the winning trainer. "The horse took over and did everything himself.
"He is a hard horse to train but has huge ability and doesn't always give you confidence when he works. I was only hoping things would come right when he came here today and they did. We're getting to know him a lot more now and trust him. It's a good possibility he could head straight to Cheltenham but we haven't really thought about that."
