Masterful success goes down well

Connections of Master Minded were understandably delighted after their emerging star jumped to prominence for the Seasons Holidays Queen Mother Champion Chase with victory on Saturday.

Owned by Clive Smith and trained by Paul Nicholls, the youngster handed out a five-length beating to dual Cheltenham Festival winner Voy Por Ustedes in the totepool Game Spirit Chase at Newbury.

Dan Skelton, assistant trainer to Nicholls, said: “Master Minded is absolutely fine and Paul had told everyone what a good horse he thought he was beforehand.

“It was obviously a pleasant surprise that we could beat Voy Por Ustedes, but we had hoped one day he’d be capable of doing that.

“We hoped he was capable of being top-class and he looks like he is, so it’s nice to see that. There’s masses of potential there as he’s only five years of age.”

Master Minded failed to complete on his first domestic start in December but one of the features of yesterday’s impressive win was his fluent jumping.

“When you get these horses over from France it can just take a run or two to get them acclimatised to English fences,” added Skelton.

“They can’t tackle them the way they do over in France but he’s a very clever horse and he jumped absolutely brilliantly.”

Master Minded is now as short as 9-4 for the Champion Chase with William Hill, who rate stablemate Twist Magic a 5-2 chance.

Boylesports take a different view, offering the same 5-2 about the latter but a more enticing 100-30 about Master Minded.

Connections could be set for another tricky decision if and when it comes to choosing which of the pair Ruby Walsh will ride at Cheltenham – and they are in no rush to make it yet.

“We’ll see what happens in the build-up but we don’t have to make any decisions at the moment,” Skelton concluded.