Gary Moore is looking forward to running Goshen in Saturday's Unibet Elite Hurdle at Wincanton.
The four-year-old is making his first start over timber since unseating Jamie Moore at the final flight of the JCB Triumph Hurdle with the race in safe-keeping.
He has twice been beaten on the Flat in recent months but his trainer isn't worried about those performances.
“Goshen is good, he has had two runs on the Flat which I was pretty satisfied with. He has had a good few mornings schooling since and his jumping has been pretty good," Moore said.
“I was disappointed in myself for running him first time out at Haydock, I didn’t believe he was as unfit as he was. He did have a slightly harder race than I wanted him to at Goodwood. I think the ground was pretty testing and they went plenty fast enough for the first part of the race and it told at the end of the race. That was the only slight negative from his run that day.”
Goshen is likely to have a relatively quiet campaign with connections feeling their are only options available to their rising star.
“Because of his rating, he is not going to be busy. He can’t run in handicaps, so the races are few and far between. I think there are only four races that he can run in up until Christmas," Moore said.
“My other horse (Botox Has), who I think is a very good horse, has come out and won first time this season and Goshen was always a better horse than him. If he had been in the Triumph Hurdle, he would have won it because of Goshen falling. I felt he was the second-best juvenile hurdler last season.”
Moore believes Goshen, who is currently 8/1 with the sponsors for the Unibet Champion Hurdle, will be able to cope with most ground conditions.
“It surprised me how well he was going at Cheltenham on reasonably good ground. I thought he was probably soft ground dependent. When he won at Brighton on the Flat it was good ground, you never get bad ground at Brighton. I know it was a moderate race, but he won it very easily.
"He ended up nearly going to the Palace Pier because Hector Crouch couldn’t pull him up! I think in ideal world, good to soft is perfect for him," he said.
Moore tasted multiple Grade One successes with former stable star Sire De Grugy and believes Goshen is on track to surpass the achievements of his Queen Mother Champion Chase winner.
“When I saw Goshen win at Sandown the second time, Richard Hughes said to me ‘that is a Triumph horse’ and I respect what he says. Always in the back on my mind I thought he would be, because he was bought to go hurdling, he wasn’t bought to be a Flat horse," he admitted.
“Sire De Grugy was the best jumper I'd trained up until Goshen came along. I just hope Goshen can emulate Sire De Grugy’s career and be as good as he was. Sire De Grugy got better with age and I hope Goshen can do the same.”
With regular jockey Jamie Moore sidelined by injury, it will be his younger brother Joshua who will take over in the saddle for Saturday’s Grade Two feature.
Their father isn't concerned over the switch saying: "Josh knows the horse very well. He has ridden him a hell of a lot, he has schooled him a lot, I don’t see that being any sort of problem whatsoever.
“It is no penalty kick, he is a four-year-old who has got to run off level weights with older horses. Hopefully, if he is as good as I hope he is, he should give a good account of himself.”
