Fergal O’Brien is primed and ready for his first Cheltenham Festival since his move to his new base between Withington and Compton Abdale.

The trainer made the 10-mile trip across Gloucestershire from his previous home in Guiting Power at the end of last summer and it’s fair to say he hasn’t looked back.

“It’s been exceptional,” said his business partner Chris Coley. “Just look at the number of winners he’s had, this game is all about having winners.”

At the time of writing, O’Brien had clocked up 56 winners for the season and was well on course to smash his previous season’s best of 60 which was set a couple of campaigns ago.

Life at Ravenswell Farm is certainly good for O’Brien and there’s clearly much more to come.

“It’s not finished yet,” said Coley of the new set-up, “but it’s all very professional. The gallops are exceptionally good, the facilities are excellent, and the stabling and staff facilities are excellent too.”

And Fergal O’Brien is clearly a very good trainer.

“We’ve got plenty of entries for the Cheltenham Festival,” continued Coley, who lives in the heart of Cheltenham. “We’ve never had a winner at the Festival, we’ve had a few places but we’ve yet to win.

“That’s the aim, we’d love to have a winner, that’s what everybody dreams about.”

A win at the showpiece occasion on the National Hunt calendar – the four-day spectacular gets under way on Tuesday 10th March – would help to lift O’Brien’s profile even higher, of course, and there is certainly plenty of ambition at the stable.

“We’re never going to get past the Nicky Henderson’s and the Paul Nicholls’ – they’ve got 150 to 200 horses in training – but we want to be high up there in the next bracket and we are already cementing our place up there,” added Coley.

Indeed, they are, because after their 56th winner they ranked 12th in the trainers’ championship, ahead of some top-name trainers.

O’Brien currently has close to 80 horses at his new home and it’s easy to see why the 47-year-old describes his new set-up as “a game-changer”.