The Willie Mullins trained Bellshill maintained his two race unbeaten record over fences at at Limerick today, winning the featured Grade 2 Shannon Airport Novice Chase under jockey Paul Townend.

The son of King’s Theatre was a Grade 1 winning novice hurdler last season and today made the step from his winning chase debut at Gowran, when today readily beating four rivals.

Afterwards Townend stated “it was a good performance - we didn’t fly and picked up well off the bend. We winged the second last and put it to bed from there. He missed one up the back but is a novice and on the whole it was a decent performance. It (the ground) is hard work but the chase course didn’t ride as soft as the hurdle course.”

Nicely done by Bellshill who wins the Grade 2 Shannon Airport Novice Chase at @LimerickRaces: pic.twitter.com/tjPOifc07D

— At The Races (@AtTheRaces) December 26, 2016

By Tom Weekes