Monty's rewards Longsdon's faith at last in feature handicap hurdle

It may have taken Monty’s Award a couple of years to get his act together but he finally came good over jumps under a canny ride from Sean Bowen to land the feature 2m4f novice handicap hurdle.

Relieved winning trainer Charlie Longsdon said: “When he won a bumper impressively at this course two years ago we thought we had a very nice horse on our hands, but nothing has gone right for him since – he has been a really difficult horse to train.

“I think he's just been mentally backward and rather fragile – it's taken until now for him to win again. But we retained faith in him and after he was runner-up at the course in August we've had this valuable prize in mind for him.”