Cheltenham novice hurdle winners could be capable of entering the festival mix in March

Was there anything to be gleaned from an ante-post perspective in the early skirmishes at Cheltenham over the weekend? Maybe not a great deal, but there were a couple of impressive novice hurdle wins that saw bookmakers issuing festival quotes.

I think there was plenty to like about the victory of Intense Approach in the 3m novice on Saturday. He easily justified favouritism, winning by six lengths on his first try at this sort of trip. 

Considering where he has come from – form figures of FPF over hurdles up until July of this year – Intense Approach has shown remarkable improvement of late as this was his third win from his last four starts.