MARITO has emerged as a really interesting contender for the top hunter chases now this spring. Easy winner of his two point-to-points in the autumn, Colin McBratney’s horse was a ready winner of the hunters’ chase at Down Royal on St Stephen’s Day.

That Down Royal race can be a big pointer to the spring. On The Fringe finished second to Oscar Barton in the race last season before Enda Bolger’s horse went on and won the Foxhunter at Cheltenham and at Aintree under Nina Carberry.

Tammys Hill finished second to On The Fringe in the Down Royal race in 2013 before exacting his revenge in the Raymond Smith Hunters’ Chase at Leopardstown on Hennessy day and following up at Cheltenham, while Salsify finished second to Tammys Hill in the race in 2012 before winning at Leopardstown, Cheltenham and Punchestown.

Marito was a high-class novice chaser for Willie Mullins. A close-up third behind Texas Jack in the Grade 2 novices’ chase at Leopardstown’s Irish Champion Hurdle meeting in 2013, he could have won the Jewson Chase at the Cheltenham Festival that March had he not fallen at the second last fence. Then he ran his then stable companion, Hurricane Fly, to a length in the Grade 1 Morgiana Hurdle in November 2013, when he had another talented stable companion Mikael D’Haguenet behind him in third.

He will be of interest now in the Raymond Smith Hunters’ Chase at Leopardstown on Irish Gold Cup day if he takes his chance in that, and afterwards in the Foxhunter at Cheltenham, for which he is currently an 8/1 shot.