Trainer Con Rutledge is heading for the showpiece Hunter Chase evening meeting at Cheltenham Racecourse on Friday in good spirits.

That’s because his horse Red Inca will be lining up in the opening race of the evening – the Cheltenham Club Open Hunters’ Chase (5.05pm) – on the back of an impressive win on Easter Monday.

The 11-year-old, who has been with Rutledge for two-and-a-half years, won the Members Race at the Paxford point-to-point meeting near Chipping Campden. It was his first win for the trainer after a couple of placed finishes.

Rutledge is hoping that the distance of two miles and half a furlong at Cheltenham will suit Red Inca, who will again be ridden by Sam Burton, and he describes his horse as a “good outside each-way bet”.

Top trainers such as Philip Hobbs and Donald McCain have also got entries in the race so Rutledge, who has lived in and around Winchcombe for much of his life, knows just how tough it will be to make an impression.

Now 69 and born in Ireland, he has been involved in and around racing all his life, and says it would be “amazing” to have a winner at Cheltenham, adding, “It would be my Gold Cup. This meeting is a great opportunity for people like me to compete at the home of National Hunt racing.”

Red Inca, who is based just outside Broadway, ran for Rutledge at this meeting last year and Rutledge also rode at the course when he was a jockey back in the day.

In those days he would ride for the likes of Gloucestershire duo Owen O’Neill and David Wintle, and he also rode for Jim Dreaper in Ireland.

And it was in Ireland he had his greatest success, riding Prominent Princess into the winner’s enclosure at Leopardstown.

It was a horse he also trained and he said: “How special would be it be to train winners at the two best racecourses in the world?”

There are seven races at Friday’s meeting with the runners coming under starter’s orders for the last at 8.20pm.