He might have been a 25/1 shock winner when sprinting away with last Saturday’s Fighting Fifth Hurdle at Newcastle, but Noel Meade’s Go Native has now put himself firmly in line for a crack at this season’s £1 million Grade 1 hurdling bonus, writes Elliot Slater.

There was no semblance of a fluke about the Newcastle victory in which the six-year-old got the better of a back-to-form Sublimity (a former Champion Hurdle winner), with hotpots Binocular and Solwhit toiling in his wake.

Now, if the son of Double Eclipse can follow up in Kempton’s Christmas Hurdle, he will stand on the brink of landing the massive bonus prize awarded to the horse that can win all three major Grade 1 two mile hurdle races in Britain this season. The Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham in March is the final leg of the treble, and having won the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle there 12 months ago over course and distance, there is a very real chance that Go Native could add his name to the great roll of hurdling champions.

Although his odds for Cheltenham have been severely trimmed since Newcastle, Go Native is still (to my mind) an appealing ante-post bet at currents odds of around 12/1 – that’s double the prices on offer for either Solwhit or Binocular! Clearly many bookmakers and punters alike are yet to be convinced that Go Native is the real deal.

As long as the Champion Hurdle isn’t run on soft ground (it’s normally run on ‘good to soft’ or better), there is absolutely no reason why Go Native should not have a mighty chance of maintaining a perfect record around Cheltenham. You can be sure that if he wins the second leg of the treble at Kempton, his odds for the big one in March will be slashed to the bone. It seems to make good punting sense to have a piece of the action now and have a tasty bet that you might be able to lay off later in the season.

In other news, betting for the Grand National 2010 is now in full swing.