Harveys celebrating with Moonshine Midnight Moonshine opened his ‘track’ account with a decisive success in the Hurley Family Maiden Hurdle at Kilbeggan. It was a family success as Ben Harvey produced the Soldier Of Fortune gelding, trained by his father William and owned by his mother Niamh, to lead on the long run to the last flight. The 4/1 shot stayed on stoutly in the closing stages to post a five-length win over William Butler. Midnight Moonshine was going one better having been runner-up at Downpatrick last time. He had won a point-to-point back in February. “The ground was pretty quick in Downpatrick and I just felt he didn’t really come down the hill with me but as soon as we met the rising ground he stayed on well,” said the winning rider. “We were confident up in trip today, coming here he had a good chance. Dad’s horses are in great nick and Mam owns this guy so it’s great. “Alex is waiting there when we need 5lb off so maybe the next day for this lad but I’ll doing my best to stay on him. “Everyone is involved and it’s a labour of love, it’s early mornings. Thankfully it’s working. “We have 16 in at the moment, it’s busy — plenty of riding out to be done. They are a nice bunch of horses, plenty of nice young horses to come on. “It’s a manageable number at the minute. It doesn’t get in the way because Dad and Mam work and we try to do everything before we go off to our jobs in other yards. “He’s a lovely horse. We haven’t done a whole lot with him at home, we haven’t really dipped him, because he was fit when we got him. “He came from Daryl Deacon and Michael Roche. We’ve just kind of run away at him. “Off the back of that he looks like he has a nice mark over fences. We thought we’d come back over hurdles after he ran in a handicap chase as we thought his jumping needed to sharpen up a bit. “We’ll have a look at the programme and see where we go, we have options. “He’s very relaxed through his races and I was a little bit worried going around. He had a good look when he hit the front so maybe a set of cheekpieces might come on in time.”
