Barry Murphy is hoping the consistency shown by his Pairofbrowneyes will eventually be rewarded and the trainer is hopeful of bringing the Grade B winning chaser to the Cheltenham festival next March.

Pairofbrowneyes has won four of his 20 races thus far but has been placed in now fewer than six of his last seven runs, four of which have been at Grade A or B level. At Fairyhouse on Sunday, the eight year old gelding finished second in the Grade A Dan Moore Memorial Chase, behind the Gigginstown House Stud owned Ball D’Arc.

Murphy, son of famous British trainer Ferdy Murphy, today stated “he is very well and ion hindsight the race came a little quick after his run in Limerick. Those consistent types are very hard on themselves and Mukey (Fogarty, jockey) said he was a little flat after a mile in his race the last day; he said he didn’t give him the same feel as at Cheltenham in November.

“We’ll freshen him up now and he’ll get an entry in the Grand Annual at Cheltenham and we’ll also look at a Grade 3 at Naas on February 28. The weights will be out for the Grand Annual by then so we’ll then be able to have a look at the Naas race. I’ll definitely be hoping for a bit of give (in the ground) if he is to run at Cheltenham and while we’ve had a dry winter, historically I know that if the weather starts to turn in Ireland or England, the ground can turn quickly.

“In his last ten runs, he has only been out of the first three once and he is an unbelievably consistent type.”

He added “he would be my only runner at Cheltenham - any of the ones that I’ve had which have raced at Cheltenham were sold on but that’s the way we work. It would be lovely to hold on to those nice horses but we that’s the way it has to be; we’ve a clatter of young horses coming along now and hopefully they’ll be sold or win for us.”

By Tom Weekes