KEIRAN Burke may only have had his licence for a few months but this young trainer is already eyeing the Cheltenham Festival with two horses.

The ambitious 26-year-old based at Ash near Martock has vastly-improved Hunt Ball lined up for a £50,000 listed novices' handicap chase over an extended two miles and four furlongs at the big meeting on Tuesday, March 13.

Four of Burke's five winners since taking over the Ash reins from Patrick Rodford last autumn have come from the seven-year-old who started the sequence off a mark of 69 at Folkestone in late November and has now soared to 117 following his latest success under Nick Scholfield in a handicap chase over two miles and five furlongs at Wincanton last month.

Hunt Ball returns to the Somerset track on Saturday searching for a course and distance encore in Scholfield's hands – and victory would push him further up the handicap in the hope of getting into the Cheltenham field.

Burke said of the Anthony Knott-owned gelding: "Last time at Wincanton was the best Hunt Ball has jumped. He is in good form and I think he'll win again on Saturday which would certainly help his cause for Cheltenham as the race there is a 0-140.

"We will also enter him for the Byrne Group Plate which I won on Holmwood Legend last season when Patrick trained him. Holmwood Legend will also be entered for that one."

Holmwood Legend has been lightly raced this winter and was last seen when unplaced in a Taunton handicap chase last month behind Micheal Flips but Burke said: "He is a spring horse and always comes good at this time of the year – he is starting to look well and work well."

The 11-year-old son of Midnight Legend is also in action at Wincanton on Saturday carrying top weight for the veterans' chase over two miles and five furlongs while the meeting will see the return as well of the yard's Buck Magic whose last appearance was at the Somerset track 15 months when landing a 16-runner novices' hurdle over two miles and six furlongs in Burke's hands.

Burke said: "Buck Magic has been off with a leg injury and he is entered for a handicap hurdle over two miles and six furlongs. Having been off for so long he's not 100 per cent and he'll certainly come on for the run."

Burke will saddle a fourth runner at his local track in Not In The Clock, a newcomer to the stable and a five-year-old maiden who moved to Ash from Charlie Mann's Upper Lambourn yard in Berkshire just before Christmas.