Son Of Hypnos strikes at 16/1 for the Smith family

Son Of Hypnos provided three generations of the Smith family with a tremendous 16/1 winner at Galway when taking the Easyfix Handicap Hurdle in great style.

The seven-year-old gelding, trained by Kevin Smith for his father and namesake and ridden by his nephew James, made headway between horses to lead after two out and soon took control.

He stayed on strongly on the run-in to beat Clonbury Bridge by ten lengths with Vischio a length and three-quarters further back in third. Harley Street didn’t enjoy the clearest of passages approaching the home turn before keeping on into fourth.

Kevin Smith said, ““It's been the plan for a while, we've had an eye on Galway for a while. It's great when it works out. It's my first festival winner, I haven't had too many runners at this meeting, so it's great.

“It's great for James to ride a winner here as well as he's been coming here since he was a child.”

The winner is entered again over 1m4f on Thursday and Smith added: “We'll have to see how he is after today. I'd imagine the way he won there that it didn't take a whole pile out of him.

“All being well that would be the plan.”

James Smith said, “I couldn’t believe how well he was going turning out of the dip, got a lovely gap and he just took off.

“The first-time blinkers worked a treat on him.”

Son Of Hypnos was recording his third course win and sixth career success in total.

Quotes by Gary Carson