ATTAGLANCE, successful at the Cheltenham Festival in 2012 and an unlucky loser last year, makes a return visit to Prestbury Park this week, on behalf of a Ryedale trainer who has stuck form with a vengeance at precisely the right time for the most prestigious four days of the National Hunt season.

Malcolm Jefferson had been struggling to win the proverbial argument through the autumn and much of the winter, but, as spring dawns, his fortunes have soared.

Having gone through a challenging period with his horses under a cloud and when he proved unable to produce more than a winner a month since last September, Jefferson has remarkably sent out six winners from his last 14 runners up to yesterday.

“We’re not doing anything different,” says the Norton trainer. “The horses were working well, eating well and looked well before and showed no real symptoms. They just weren’t running well or finishing their races like they should. All the vets said was that they were low in their immune systems.

“Well,” he joked, “they are obviously a lot higher now.”

The turning of the tide for Jefferson came at Newcastle on February 21 when Oscar Rock provided him with his first winner of the month.

Since then, he has scored with Sun Cloud at Sedgefield, Cyrus Darius and Jurby – two useful-looking young horses – at Newcastle last Wednesday, Grey Life at Carlisle the following day and King Of The Wolds, who bolted up by five lengths at Ayr on Saturday.

“I am very fortunate in that I have got some very good and loyal owners, who, when things aren’t going right, stick with us,” says Jefferson, who would like nothing better than to add his name to the roll of honour at Cheltenham this week.

In Attaglance, a horse with a useful course record, he has a fighting chance of doing just that in tomorrow’s (Thursday’s) £90,000 Brown Advisory & Merribelle Stable Plate, a handicap chase over two miles and five furlongs.

“He seems very well,” reports Jefferson. “Although he hasn’t run since the middle of December and has had only two races this season, I would sooner have him like that than be going there with a horse who had been hard-raced. He’s been going around that long gallop (on Langton Wold). He’s fine.”

A winner over hurdles at Cheltenham three years ago when Jefferson also scored with Cape Tribulation, Attaglance was beaten by only half a length by Present View last year over fences and was largely considered an unlucky loser after the winner hung into his path and jockey Brian Hughes had to switch the Ryedale horse on the run-in to relaunch his challenge.

“The ground is important to him, as he’s a horse who likes decent ground,” said Jefferson. “It’s very tough to win down there. You need luck on your side and you need everything to go well.”

You also need horses in form. And, for the first time in a long time, Malcolm Jefferson can tick that box. He will also saddle Firth Of The Clyde in the AP McCoy Grand Annual Chase, which closes the meeting on Friday. Fingers are crossed that the Newstead runners do their red-hot trainer proud.

 

• TIM EASTERBY, who produced a shock 33-1 winner at the Cheltenham Festival 12 months ago, is hoping for more of the same this week as Hawk High, last year’s hero, spearheads a select raiding party from his Great Habton yard.

Easterby, whose string has been in excellent form, saddles Hawk High in the County Handicap Hurdle on Friday. “I’ve been pleased enough with him this season,” he said, referring largely to an Aintree win and a good second to Glingerburn on Hawk High’s latest outing at Kelso.

The high-class winner has since scored in Grade 2 company. “The better ground will suit our horse and he showed last year that he can cope with a big field,” added Easterby.

Among the opposition will be Lightening Rod, trained by his uncle, Sheriff Hutton-based Mick Easterby, and a dual-Wetherby winner this season. A strong-travelling gelding, who likes to be produced late, Lightening Rod possesses a telling turn of foot.

Tim Easterby will also be represented by Trustan Times and Run Ructions Run in the Pertemps Network Handicap Hurdle Final tomorrow.

“They are both well,” said Easterby, who sent out Trustan Times to finish a close-up fourth in the corresponding race last year.

“He just lost his place at the top of the hill, but he came home really well. If he could hold his place better this time, who knows?

“Whatever happens at Cheltenham, his main aim again is the Scottish Grand National next month,” added the trainer, who saddled the versatile gelding to finish third in Ayr’s showpiece event last year.

Run Ructions Run has finished in the money in all but one of her five starts this season. She goes to Cheltenham after a runner-up effort at Haydock last month. “She’s tough, she stays three miles and I could see her running well,” said Easterby.

 

• ALTHOUGH without his chief Festival hope, the high-class Aurore d’Estruval, who had an untimely setback on the final run-up to the meeting, John Quinn will be represented by Mr Gallivanter in today’s Fred Winter Juvenile Handicap Hurdle and is hopeful underfoot conditions will suit.

“He doesn’t want it soft, which is why I haven’t run him since mid-December, but I’m very happy with him,” said Quinn, who has placed Mr Gallivanter to win two of his three races over hurdles.

“I think he’ll run a good race. He’s going there with a chance.”

The Highfield handler, meanwhile, fears Forced Family Fun, his entry in the Vincent O’Brien County Hurdle on Friday, will be denied a run.

“I don’t think he’ll make the cut,” said Quinn, referring to the safety limit of runners for this big-field handicap.

 

• A SHOWER or three of rain in the Cheltenham area this week would suit Brian Ellison on behalf of Definitly Red, who is set to line up in the Grade 1 Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle on Friday.

The six-year-old, a high-class bumper horse, has won two of his three races over hurdles, most notably a Grade 2 affair at Haydock on his latest start.

“He’s a good horse, very tough, and he stays three miles well,” says Ellison. “Ideally, he wants some give in the ground - he prefers it on the soft side.”

The Norton trainer is no stranger to big-race success under both codes, but he has yet to have a Cheltenham Festival winner. “It would mean everything to have a winner there,” he added.

With the exception of Conquisto in the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle, Ellison’s other entries at the Festival, which include last month’s impressive Musselburgh winner Streets Of Newyork, triple-winner Full Day and the progressive Racing Europe, look unlikely to make the cut in their handicap races.

 

• NICKY TINKLER, a former accomplished amateur rider and brother of jockey Andrew, is poised to make his Cheltenham Festival bow as a trainer on Friday.

Based at Scampston, near Rillington, where he trains a small string of point-to-pointers, Nicky, whose father Colin rode many times at the Festival as a leading jump-jockey, is set to saddle Junior in the St James’s Place Foxhunter Chase. Formerly a high-class performer on the Flat and over jumps, the 12-year-old has won a point-to-point and finished second in a Wetherby hunter chase for Tinkler this season.