IN JUNE 2013, a two-year-old horse called Beltor made its racecourse debut for County Durham flat trainer Michael Dods in a class-five five-furlong contest at Ripon. At odds of 33-1, it finished 11th of 11.

On Friday, that same horse, now a four-year-old, will start as either the second or third favourite for the Triumph Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival, the most prestigious juvenile race in jumps racing. By any stretch of the imagination, that is quite a transition.

“I guess it’s a slightly unusual route to take,” said Dods, who is based at Denton, near Piercebridge. “But we always knew he would turn into a lovely horse.

“He always had bags of potential, and he was always going to take a little bit of time to develop. We thought he’d grow into a nice flat horse, and we had decent races between ten and 12 furlongs in mind for him eventually. The surprise is that he’s switched over to jumping and made such a big impression straightaway.”

Beltor made six appearances for Dods, with his best performance coming towards the end of his two-year-old season as he finished third in a decent maiden stakes contest at Newcastle.

By the time he was three, he had moved to Sir Mark Prescott’s yard in Newmarket, and his first race for his new trainer, which was over ten furlongs, resulted in his first success.

Still, though, he was destined to remain as an unremarkable flat performer before he was snapped up at the sales by jumps trainer Robert Stephens.

His first outing over hurdles saw him land a useful juvenile hurdle at Ludlow despite going off at odds of 16-1, and his next racecourse visit resulted in a marked step up as he beat a host of highly-rated rivals to land the Grade Two Adonis Juvenile Hurdle at Kempton.

That performance, which came last month, entitles him to travel to Cheltenham on Friday with every hope of landing one of the biggest prizes in National Hunt racing, but given that he started out over five furlongs for Dods, how he did end up at the opposite end of the country hurdling over two miles?

“It’s an unusual story,” said his original trainer. “He was owned by a fairly well-known owner called Stewart Aitken, and he was a half-brother to Cara’s Request so he ended up in our yard.

“He’s out of Authorized, so he’s wonderfully well-bred, and being out of Authorized, we always knew that five-furlong races were not really going to be his forte, but initially it was just about getting him onto the racecourse and getting some experience into him.

“He had a handful of runs for us, and the plan was to step him up in distance and grade the following season, but unfortunately, his owner, old Stewart, died, and his son inherited his horses.

“He wanted to take Beltor down south, and that’s why he ended up going to Sir Mark. I can remember Sir Mark ringing me and asking if he was worth taking on. I told him, ‘Yes, he might not be showing a lot at the minute, but there’s definitely something there’.

“He had a couple of runs for Sir Mark, but he ended up in the sales and was bought by one of Sir Mark’s ex-assistants to go hurdling. That suggests there was an awareness there that he had potential.”

Dods had also seen that potential, but did he really think the modest two-year-old would go on to achieve the heights he is threatening to scale this week?

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“He was a very ‘colty’ youngster,” he said. “He would be going down to the start of his races and he’d get himself into a right state because all he wanted to do was shout at the other horses.

“I remember Tom Eaves coming back to me one day and saying, ‘We can’t do anything with him if he’s carrying on like that’. He was always going to be a different horse when he grew up, and towards the end of his time with us, we had him gelded. That probably made a big difference.”

If Beltor is to triumph at Cheltenham this week, he will have to outperform Peace And Co, regarded by many as one of the bankers of the Festival. Can Dods see him coming out on top?

“I know a few of the owners in the yard are on him at 33s so they’ll definitely be supporting him,” he said. “I watched one of Peace And Co’s first runs, and I remember leaving the course that night and thinking, ‘That’s the winner of the Triumph Hurdle’.

“But it was impossible not to be impressed with Beltor’s last run and he’ll definitely be starting with a live chance. He’ll probably have to improve again to win it, but he’s still fairly untried over jumps so he could definitely have that improvement in him.”