The Shay Barry trained Bentelimar is already a regular festival goer and today booked his latest one, as his win in the Carrickbyrne Novice Chase at Wexford cemented his place in the line-up for the Galway festival.

Ridden by regular rider Brian O’Connell, the son of Beneficial scored a ready 15 lengths win over Dicosimo and afterwards Barry said “he had a break after Leopardstown (in January); he was running a lovely race there until he fell at the last. Earlier on last season he was coming up against all those good novices so we gave him a break and he likes being fresh. Hopefully he can go forward from here now.”

Bentelimar has already raced at the Cheltenham, Punchestown and Leopardstown Christmas (winning at the Dublin venue) festivals and having finished ninth in last year’s Galway Hurdle, the trainer plans another repeat at that festival.

He added “Galway is the plan, but whether we run him before then, we'll have to wait and see. I'm half thinking about the Galway Plate off a nice weight, but we'll see as there are a few nice novices there too so I'll have to talk to his owner Jim (Ryan) - once he stays sound he'll head to Galway."

By Tom Weekes, quotes from Donal Murphy