Bank on Butch for Carlisle win

Olly Murphy's Butch is expected to stamp his class on the Dalston Novices' Chase at Carlisle today.

- Press Association

The eight-year-old won four of his eight starts over hurdles and was second to Botox Has in the Grade 2 Rendlesham Hurdle at Haydock exactly a year ago.

With a rating of 141, Butch was a long odds-on favourite for his chasing debut at Leicester in December and pulled 14 lengths clear with the minimum of fuss.

He holds an entry in the Brown Advisory Novices' Chase at the Cheltenham Festival and that Grade 1 contest, or perhaps a trip to Aintree in the spring, could come into sharper focus if he can defy the mandatory penalty in Cumbria.

Always A Reason is of interest in the Carlisle Conditional Jockeys' Novices' Limited Handicap Hurdle.

The Irish point-to-point winner has not shown a great deal in three starts since joining Rebecca Menzies in truth, but that has allowed him to enter handicap sphere off a lowly mark of 93.