"WHEN you look at them, it’s like looking at a car. You know? He’s a Rolls Royce. He looks class. He knows he is class. He’s a lovely horse.”

As an observer of horsepower, Brian Ellison has proved so often that he knows a good engine when he sees one.

So when he talks about Definitly Red in such glowing terms, it takes willpower not to leave his Norton yard, rush to the nearest bookie, and wager the mortgage.

If the ground is right - and if it is too firm he won’t be going - the pride of the Spring Cottage Stable’s jumping team will launch an assault on the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival three weeks today.

High expectations, already soaring after the five-year-old won on his first start for Ellison at Catterick on New Year’s Day, were raised even further when Definitly Red put in a gritty performance to win the Grade 2 Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle under rider Richard Johnson at Haydock last weekend.

It was a battling display, a half- a-length victory over favourite Fletcher’s Flyer, with the third- placed horse a further 22 lengths back. Now among the fancied entrants at Prestbury Park next month, Ellison admits he repre - sents his best chance of breaking his duck at a four-day meeting where he yearns for a winner.

That is, of course, if he runs.

“He definitely won’t be running if it is good ground,” the Geordie ainer insisted. “It needs to be on the easy side or softer. If not there are plenty of options for him. He could go to Liverpool, Puncheston or Ayr.

“He is such a nice horse and, probably next year, he will go chasing and he could be top-class. We just need to look after him a bit.”

The last time Ellison had such a Festival hope was after Marsh Warbler had won the Grade 1 Future Champions Finale Juvenile Hurdle at Chepstow four years ago.

The elements conspired against him - the soft-surface specialist finishing 11th on good ground in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle.

This time, though, the trainer is relaxed and believes bigger triumphs are ahead even if he fails to make the start line next month.

“It was a good race between two good horses,” Ellison said of the Haydock highlight. “They went a long way clear. The third horse will probably go on to win his novice and he was beaten by 22 lengths.

“If he had jumped the third last a bit better we would probably have won a bit more comfortably. I don’t think there was much between the two horses but it was a great race to watch, a good gallop and they quickened up in the straight.

“He didn’t lose much weight from the race. His head was up all the time and, mentally, I think he has improved again from that run. It was only his second race for us. He has won two out of two. He was a good bumper horse.”

He added: “If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. I won’t be sitting ere worrying about the ground.

Getting them there in one piece is the biggest worry and then if the ground doesn’t come, we won’t run.

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“We know we have got a good future with the horse. He could end up being a Gold Cup horse. He stays well. He will jump a fence well. He has just got class. He showed it at Haydock. He is rated 143 and I think there is still a lot of improvement to come yet.”

Jockey Johnson, who is “probably as good as anyone round Cheltenham” in Ellison’s eyes, could be in the saddle but Definitly Red is far from his only hope of Festival glory.

He hopes Streets Of Newyork can take his chance in the Vincent O’Brien County Hurdle on March 13 and, of his recent Musselburgh winner, he said: “He won really well last week. He travels. He is jumping better. He is a horse that is improving all the time and, if he goes to Cheltenham, he will run well. I think he will go to the County Hurdle.

“It’s a hot race - especially when you have got the Irish coming over - and all you can do is get your horse there in good fettle, in the best form you can, and hope that he runs his race.

“It’s hard to go there and say you are going to win. Especially on the Friday because you are going to meet better ground. We know he will go on better ground but a lot of horses will run on softer and, all of a sudden, the ground changes everything.”

Racing Europe might make the Pertemps and The Grey Taylor - running tomorrow at Kempton - is entered for the Supreme Novices’ and will be Festival bound should he scoop Grade 2 glory in the Sky Bet Dovecote Novices’ Hurdle.

That’s despite the formidable threat awaiting in Willie Mullins’ Douvan.

“He is being talked about as one of the best they have ever trained,” Ellison explained. “On Timeform ratings, he is the equal of Faugheen when he won at Cheltenham last year. He has never come off the bridle so how good is he?

“If The Grey Taylor gets beaten tomorrow he will go to Aintree, if he wins he would take his chance (at Cheltenham). You can’t run away from one horse. If he (Douvan) made a mistake, or gets brought down, you would be thinking: ‘I should have run him’.”

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Then there is Top Of The Glas. A horse that has celebrity owners in the shape of Sunderland defender John O’Shea and England captain Wayne Rooney. The Triumph Hurdle, also staged on the Festival’s final day, could be the destination for a horse who may be better than his race record suggests.

Ellison explained: “I think Top Of The Glas is a very good horse. I don’t think anything has gone right for him. He’s also in the Fred Winter but he would probably get in the Triumph and I think he is a lot better horse than he has shown.”

The Festival can’t come soon enough.