Flooring Porter completes rapid rise in Christmas Hurdle

Jonathan Moore on Flooring Porter in The Leopardstown Christmas Hurdle

There were shades of Darver Star in Flooring Porter as the Gavin Cromwell-trained gelding completed his rapid rise through the handicap ranks by running at the top level. Whereas his stablemate has, thus far, just fallen short at the very top-grade, Flooring Porter made that leap forward with a terrific display in the Grade 1 Leopardstown Christmas Hurdle.

The five-year-old was beaten off a mark of 118 in a novice handicap hurdle at this meeting last year but progressed so quickly that connections felt justified in supplementing him for this race after his recent runaway success in a handicap hurdle off a mark of 136. In theory, he had plenty still to find but oh how he vindicated connections’ confidence.