Pat Doyle has set his sights on championship honours for Sydney Paget following his point-to-point victory at Killeagh last Sunday.

Formerly trained in Britain by Donald McCain, Sydney Paget joined Doyle at the start of last season and has notched up eight wins for his new handler.

Doyle is planning to avoid trips to the Cheltenham Festival and Aintree's Grand National meeting, with back-to-back victories in the Joseph R O'Reilly Hunters Chase at Fairyhouse's Easter meeting his major target for Sydney Paget.

Doyle said: "He will go to Belharbour in three weeks' time, and we will see after that. He won't go to Cheltenham. I'd say he'd run a good race in Cheltenham, probably finish third or fourth, and maybe come home wrecked out of it.

"What I'd like to do is make him champion point-to-pointer this year, and go back for the Joseph O'Reilly at Fairyhouse again. He is three from three this season, and he'll probably have to win six or seven to be the champion.

"Hopefully the good horses will be in Cheltenham and Liverpool, so we will send him on to Fairyhouse then, and try to keep things as simple as we can.

"We've ran him 10 times, he has won eight and was second twice. He is a smashing horse to have in the place.

"We have a lot of nice horses in the yard, and we have 30 four-year-olds, so we are looking forward to February now.

"We've a few horses for the track, and we have a nice horse to run at Thurles on Thursday (Tinos Tank). He was second at Limerick over Christmas so hopefully he can go one better on Thursday."