The signs look ominous for the British runners at the Cheltenham Festival after the 20/1 chance Surprise Package made a mockery of the handicap to win the Paddy Power Imperial Cup Handicap Hurdle at Sandown Park on Saturday.
The win was also a wonderful 21st birthday surprise for jockey James Bowen, who revealed that it was just his second winner around this track: "I haven't had a winner on my birthday before," he said.
"I think I got close to it at Cheltenham once. It's good and I'm starting to like this place a bit more now."
Surprise Package was immediately touted as a possible winner of that very tricky 'double' of the Imperial Cup followed by the County Hurdle, which takes place at Cheltenham on Friday.
After this performance that does not look as fanciful as it might first look, especially as Bowen admitted afterwards that he hadn't been where he had planned to be in the race: "I had a far from ideal run round really because I wanted to be in the first half and I was in the last half. I kinda just went wide down the back.
"It always gets tight around the bend. I got clear of them round it even though I was six or seven wide. It didn't do me any harm because he came into the straight unbothered and he's just travelled so well all the way around."
What was particularly eyecatching about this effort was the way he was so easily able to make ground in testing conditions and how little work Bowen needed to do up the home straight.
Lively Citizen ran a big race to be best of the rest for trainer David Jeffreys and 7lb claimer Archie Bellamy. They were no match for the winner, who got in here off a mark of 135, but they still held off the Paul Nicholls-trained Hacker Des Places for third place.
The favourite, Nicky Henderson-trained Balco Coastal, did not complete.
