The promising novice chaser, The Real Whacker, will accompany Patrick Neville directly to the Cheltenham Festival.

The seven-year-old had previously finished second in Grade Two company as a novice hurdler and first in his division in the Dipper Novices’ Chase at Prestbury Park on New Year’s Day.

Though entered in the prestigious Cheltenham Gold Cup, the Real Whacker is likely to remain in novice company and instead aim for the Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase, which is run at a longer distance.

“He came out of the race on New Year’s Day extremely excellent; I’m quite satisfied with him,” Neville remarked. I was delighted with how much he had matured.

Now that we’re so close, I expect him to make haste for the Festival. The Brown Advisory is the most reasonable option.

I registered him for the Gold Cup, but we’ll likely run in the shorter beginner event over three miles instead.

It was only his sixth run, but his jumping is already quite good. He doesn’t have much experience yet, but I’ll be satisfied with his performance if he continues to improve.

In 2021, Neville relocated from Ireland to train out of Ann Duffield’s North Yorkshire yard, where The Real Whacker is the star of a team of about 20 horses.

Neville had planned to move into his yard in Middleham, but he and Duffield ended up settling on the outskirts of Leyburn instead, and their partnership has been quite successful.

November of last year marked one year since my arrival here. I had planned to take a yard, but things didn’t work out, so I ended up at Ann Duffield, and now I couldn’t be happier with my decision.

It took nine or ten months longer than I expected to transfer my Irish license. We got roughly 17 winners since we arrived, most of them from National Hunt horses initially run under Ann’s name.

N’Golo won a Grade 3 race, and Whacker was second in the Grade 2 hurdles a year ago.

“I’ve been training in Ireland since approximately 2006, and we had some beautiful winners, but only for the last couple of years it was a struggle,

” Neville explained why he decided to relocate across the Irish Sea. It was impossible to find owners.

The United Kingdom is a great place to train horses for racing, and there is no shortage of races to attend.

Depending on the schedule, there may be only one weekly race meeting in Ireland, and missing it could result in a balloting ban lasting up to seven weeks.

Keeping a horse in training for that long without entering it in a race is a formidable challenge.

When I saw how much money I was spending on trips to England, I decided to try my luck in the United States instead.