Warren Greatrex and James Bowen warm up for Bill Baxter's Topham defence with a Hereford double

Warren Greatrex and James Bowen warmed up for Bill Baxter’s Topham Chase defence by combining for a double.

Shillanavogy and Village Master struck under Bowen in the 2m3½f novice handicap hurdle and 2m5f handicap chase to provide Greatrex with his first winners in April.

Shillanavogy ran in races won by subsequent Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle runner-up The Jukebox Man on his first two starts for Greatrex, who said: “I bought him on the recommendation of Noel McParlan. We’ve had a good association, he won a valuable race for me on Missed Approach [2018 Kim Muir]."

On the six-year-old, he added: "He’s always shown plenty but he’s just been a bit of a slow burner.”

Village Master was making a successful chase and handicap debut and Greatrex added: “I trained his half-brother, Portrush Ted, who was a very good horse for me, and I liked his second point.

“We’ve just been hitting the crossbar with the amount of places and seconds we’ve had, so hopefully the tide has turned.”

It was a timely double for Greatrex, whose Bill Baxter is the 6-1 favourite to win back-to-back Tophams at Aintree on Friday.

“He’s come back to 1lb higher than when he won it last year,” Greatrex said of the eight-year-old. “He seems exactly the same horse. James schooled him last week over the National fences and he agreed, because he didn’t ride him last year, that he really loves the bigger fences.

“He was in good form anyway, but he seems to have really come alive now and we’re very much looking forward to it. The worse the ground is, the better. I can’t believe he’ll do it twice but you never know.”

Lucky 13

Trapista was third behind subsequent Coral Gold Cup winner Datsalrightgino on her chasing debut at Chepstow in November 2022 and finally got off the mark over fences at the 13th attempt off a 28lb lower mark.

Jonjo O’Neill’s mare scored by seven lengths in the 2m novice handicap chase under the trainer’s son Jonjo Jr.

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