HEREFORDSHIRE trainer Tom Lacey described his Ascot winner Blow Your Wad as a ‘lovely horse with a bright future’ and he could have the Cheltenham Festival as a target after securing a first victory over fences in the Ladbrokes Boost Your Odds On Racing Novices’ Limited Handicap Chase.

Having finished runner up to subsequent Grade One winner Le Patron on his debut over fences at Sandown Park last month, the Much Marcle based five-year-old had gone into many notebooks as a horse to follow and improved on that effort under a power packed ride from jockey Stan Sheppard.

Lacey commented after the race saying: “He is a course and distance winner over hurdles. Maybe a flat track helps, but he was on and off the bridle there a few times. There were a couple of times I thought he was going nowhere and the next thing he was hard on the bridle travelling like the winner. All the way up the straight I thought he would win. He is a lovely horse with a big future.

“Today was a target. We will just have to have a think and the lads will want to go to Cheltenham in March if they can. I don’t think we would step him up in trip. A strong run two and a half miles would be fine.”

Byton trainer Kerry Lee was also amongst the winners over the Festive period when her Black Hawk Eagle took the one-mile seven-furlong Handicap Hurdle down at Wincanton in the hands of jockey Richard Patrick.

Previously in the hands of Irish trainer Noel Meade, Black Hawk Eagle was giving Lee her tenth winner of the season and ran on strongly to score by a comfortable three-quarters of a length.