Young gun Kalashnikov is the serious weapon his name suggests

Three years ago, when Amy Murphy was still assistant trainer to Luca Cumani, her dad, Paul, reserved the name Kalashnikov with Weatherbys and told his daughter that when she got a "serious weapon of a horse" he had just the name for it.

And at Newbury on Saturday the horse named to blow his rivals away did exactly that when capturing the Betfair Hurdle and giving his trainer, as drenched as the rest of a sodden crowd at Newbury, a major day in the sun.

And where was Dad? Well between the last two flights of hurdles he was landing in Cape Town en route to a safari. Whatever the veld holds in store he won't see many of god's creatures as impressive as this one.