A Grade Two winner at Newbury earlier in the season, the seven-year-old was beaten into third place in the Kauto Star Novices’ Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day before making the most of a gilt-edged opportunity at Ayr on his latest outing.

He is a 7-1 shot with Coral for the Brown Advisory, making him the shortest priced British-trained horse and Snowden is relishing the challenge of taking on the Irish contingent in the Cotswolds.

Reflecting on his Ayr success, the trainer said: “All I can say is that our lad’s had a nice experience, he jumped round and three miles on a left-handed track on slightly softer ground is just what he wanted.

“He found Kempton a bit sharp, the ground was a bit quick that day and I think we’re better on a left-handed track.

“We learned from Kempton. We went to Kempton half thinking that might happen, but if we were thinking about the King George next year we wanted to find out how he handled it as a novice as opposed to waiting until next year.

“He didn’t have to show anything up at Ayr, but it’s a long time between Kempton and Cheltenham, we wanted to get a run into him and it was the only race he could run in.

“I wouldn’t be swapping our chap and it’s super exciting. We’ve been lucky enough to have a couple of Festival winners, but those were probably longer prices, so to go there with a fairly short-priced horse for it is really exciting.”