EVESHAM-owned racehorse Ackertac is being aimed at this year’s Paddy Power Gold Cup at Cheltenham after coming on leaps and bounds this season.

Mark Aspey, who co-owns the eight-year-old gelding with Steve Catton, has the horse in training at the prolific Nigel Twiston-Davies’ Cotswolds-based yard and the team are plotting a raid on November’s big race at the famous circuit.

Ackertac, who has won around £45,000 this year after Aspey bought him unraced from Twiston-Davies for £20,000, showed more speed than his three rivals in the straight to continue his improvement over fences by winning the recent Weatherite Novices’ Chase at Prestbury Park at odds of 13-2.

Second by a neck to Rajdhani Express at the Novices’ Handicap Chase at the Cheltenham Festival meeting in March, Ackertac beat an impressive field on his recent return to the circuit.

Aspey, who is a professional gambler and makes a living betting in-running on horse racing on Betfair, said: “He got beaten by a neck by Rajdhani Express after getting caught up at the second last in the Novices’ Handicap Chase at the Cheltenham Festival.

“He won the Weatherite Novices’ Chase recently and he destroyed a field that included two horses that ran in the Royal Sun Alliance Chase at the Festival in Goulanes and Houblon Des Obeaux, as well as Jewson Novices’ Chase runner Sire Collonges.

“This season he has been running on ground that has been really against him. He is more of a good or good-to-soft horse, so the ground has only really come right for him of late.

“He is eight-years-old now and will have the next three months in the field as a summer holiday. I do all his work myself, riding him on Tuesdays and Fridays at Nigel Twiston-Davies’ yard in Naunton, so I get a lot of enjoyment out of him.

“He will then go back to Nigel’s place in August and the Paddy Power Gold Cup in November will probably be his first big race. He has gone well up in the handicap and he has not got to improve too much to be up there with the top chasers in the country.

As well as being tipped as a Paddy Power Gold Cup horse, Aspey admits Twiston-Davies is eager to give Ackertac a shot at next year’s Grand National.

Aspey added: “Nigel is very keen to run him in the Grand National — I don’t really like the race because of the risk to the horse — but Ackertac would be an ideal horse for it.

“He will be nine-years-old then, he stays three miles-plus and loves decent ground, so would be ideal for the National, but Nigel will have to do a lot of persuading for me to go for it.”