Beef Or Salmon was a convincing winner of the James Nicholson Wine Merchant Chase at Down Royal on Saturday.
Ireland's top rated chaser, who failed to sparkle on his return at Limerick, put that performance well behind him when getting the better of the improving Kicking King by a comfortable three-and-a-half lengths.
Timmy Murphy charted a wide course throughout on the gelding, in order to avoid trouble, and jumped into the lead at the last before quickening away for an impressive victory.
'I'm very pleased. He suffered a nasty over-reach on his near fore but it's nothing a trip to the seaside won't fix. If he runs before the Ericsson it would be in the Clonmel Oil Chase (Nov 18th),' said Hourigan.
'Timmy said he is a different horse this year, more relaxed. He travelled half a furlong more than the others as we wanted to avoid interference. He was 75 per cent today and was only 50 per cent at Limerick.'
