French plan to Master festival

Legendary French trainer guillaume Macaire set his sights yesterday on an assault on British grade One events after witnessing star novice chaser Master dino win impressively at Plumpton.

Sky Bet reacted swiftly to the five- year- old’s impressive seven-length defeat of the useful Knocknanuss under daryl Jacob by slashing his odds to 3-1 for the JLT novices’ Chase at the Cheltenham Festival.

Plumpton offer a bonus of £60,000 for any horse that wins there before scoring at the Festival in March and connections of Master dino intend to take up the incentive if all goes well in the grade One Scilly Isles Chase at Sandown next month.

Macaire said: ‘I’m very pleased because it was a test. He is a good horse, a top juvenile in France, but the arkle (2m) could be too fast for him. He was keen in the past and I worked hard to settle him at home, so it would be silly to then get him to go flat out in that race.’

Battleoverdoyen was another novice to enhance his Festival credentials as an authoritative winner of the grade One Lawlor’s of naas Hurdle.

Trained by gordon elliott, the son of doyen was installed by Coral as the 5- 1 joint favourite with the nicky Henderson-trained Champ for the Ballymore novices’ Hurdle following his victory.