Moloney cut for Supreme

Howard Johnson's five-year-old maintained his unbeaten record over timber with the minimum of fuss in the Scottish Racing Novices' Hurdle.

Denis O'Regan tracked the early pace on the 2-5 favourite and despite a couple of less than fluent leaps, he was not hard-pressed to beat Houston Dynimo by eight lengths.

While the white-hot atmosphere of the Festival opener will be completely different to a drizzly afternoon in Scotland, it was hard not to be impressed by him under a double penalty.

Sky Bet reacted by cutting Red Moloney to 14/1 (from 16s) for the Surpreme Novices' Hurdle at Cheltenham while totesport and William Hill are the same price from 20s.

Owner Graham Wylie said: "We had to run him today as he is only rated 128 and we want to try and make sure he gets in the Supreme Novices' Hurdle if Howard decides to run him.

"I think he will need to be about 140 but it is the Supreme he will go for if he does go to Cheltenham.

"Denis said he was very pleased with him, it was a better race today and he jumped really well and was giving a lot of weight away, it wasn't a bad race at all."