Ma Shantou could test big-race aspirations on Trials day

Emma Lavelle is weighing up a Cleeve Hurdle appearance for the thriving Ma Shantou, keen to take advantage of the improving seven-year-old’s fondness of Cheltenham.

Seventh in the Albert Bartlett at the Festival, Ma Shantou has returned to win at Prestbury Park twice this season, with a taking performance off near top-weight on New Year’s Day having connections seeing a return to a higher grade on Trials day as the “logical next step”.

Lavelle said: “He’s come out of the race on New Year’s Day really well and fresh and I think if you are going to have a racecourse that a horse loves going to and performs well at then Cheltenham would be high up on the list.

“The track does seem to suit him for whatever reason and I think we’ll have a look at the Cleeve. It’s not a certainty, but he will definitely get an entry and we’ll see.

“It will only be three weeks since the run on New Year’s Day, so we’ll have to see how he is, but it does seem the logical next step.”

Ma Shantou has already qualified for the typically competitive Pertemps Hurdle at the Festival thanks to his course victory in October, but he will also be handed a Stayers’ Hurdle entry, with his Cleeve Hurdle performance possibly determining if his team will shoot for top honours in March.

“He’ll definitely get an entry for the Stayers’ Hurdle and then we’ll have the Pertemps as our other option,” continued Lavelle.

“He’s 144 now and that would have been close to top-weight in the Pertemps last year and he’s not a big horse, so if that looks to be where we are hovering then maybe we might just take our chance and run in the Stayers’. We’ll make sure we have all options available to us anyway.”