Next stop Cheltenham Festival for hot prospect Potters Charm

Exciting novice Potters Charm will head straight to the Cheltenham Festival, where only heavy ground will prevent a move back up in trip for a shot at the Turners Novices’ Hurdle.

Trained by Nigel Twiston-Davies, the well-regarded five-year-old has excelled over both an intermediate trip and at Prestbury Park this season, scooping Grade Two honours in the Cotswolds with a destructive display at the November meeting.

Dropped back in distance for his first taste of Grade One competition at Aintree on Boxing Day, he justified both connections’ lofty opinion and his position as evens-favourite for the Formby Novices’ Hurdle with a scintillating success in the Merseyside gloom.

It was not only the Twiston-Davies team’s first Grade One success since the days of Bristol De Mai, but a performance that marked him out as a real contender for National Hunt’s showpiece meeting in March.

After reporting their new star had bounced out of his trip to Liverpool in rude health, Willy Twiston-Davies, assistant trainer to his father, confirmed he will now head straight to Cheltenham.

He said: “He’s come out of Aintree really well and did two canters on Tuesday morning. We thought we were going to give him a bit longer break but he has come out of the race so well and very fresh.

“We’ll go straight to Cheltenham and find a little gallop for him in between, but he seems in really, really good form.

“Sam (Twiston-Davies, jockey) said his hurdling was much slicker and the race was never really in doubt and dropping back in trip to win a Grade One is obviously quite a difficult thing to do. It just shows the ability he has to win over two miles and two-miles-five, it takes a very good horse to do that.”

Potters Charm is as short as 7-1 for the Turners Novices’ Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival and that race appears almost certain to be the gelding’s chief spring assignment unless a pre-meeting deluge hits jumps racing HQ.

“He’s now a Grade One winner over two miles and let’s just hope he can do it again over two-miles-five at the Cheltenham Festival,” continued Twiston-Davies.

“We wouldn’t run over two miles again unless it was heavy ground and the Turners is definitely the race for him. He’s not slow and he can stay, he just has all those factors that make him a very good horse.”

Twiston-Davies also suggested Beauport will remain over hurdles for the time being following his fine effort to finish third in the Long Walk Hurdle at Ascot.

The Grand National remains the main objective for the spring, but both Cheltenham’s Cleeve Hurdle on Festival Trials day (January 25) and Haydock’s Rendlesham Hurdle (February 15) have emerged as more immediate options for the eight-year-old, who sports the same colours the Jenny Pitman-trained Corbiere wore to success in the 1983 National.

“I think we’ll stay over hurdles at least until the National weights come out and something like the Rendlesham or the Cleeve Hurdle could be a good race for him,” said Twiston-Davies.

“He ran such a good race at Ascot and I would think hurdles is a good plan until the weights for Aintree come out.”