Eight years after Native River’s success in the Cheltenham Gold Cup, hopes were on the rise that the next British-trained winner could now be imminent. Jango Baie, the shortest-priced runner from a British yard in the antepost betting, was steered around the Denman Chase due to concerns over the heavy ground, but in his absence Haiti Couleurs made all the running to confirm his place in the field on 13 March.

The Welsh Grand National winner is now as short as 7-1 to take chasing’s most prestigious prize.

In terms of his physique and running style, there is a definite hint of Denman, the 2008 Gold Cup winner, about Rebecca Curtis’s chaser and while his jumping was not always foot-perfect he readily drew seven lengths clear of L’Homme Presse after the final fence.

It will be much more difficult to dominate a Gold Cup field in similar style, but the extra quarter-mile at Cheltenham will play to his strengths and the nine-year-old fully deserves his place in the lineup.

“There were lots of expectations today and he’s gone and shown he must have some sort of chance in the Gold Cup,” Curtis said. “L’Homme Presse is a really good yardstick and although I’m not saying he’s gone and beaten a Gold Cup field, he’s done really well.

“He likes to be ridden positively and we weren’t going to change that. I was confident he was more than a handicapper and it’s not like he’s been beaten in a handicap and you know where their mark is. He’s practically unbeaten in handicaps and we still don’t probably know where his ceiling is.

“He’ll enjoy the Gold Cup trip and he loves going up and down hills and undulating tracks. It was Sean [Bowen, his jockey] in fact who said how much he loves going fast downhill, and he has great balance.”

Nicky Henderson’s Lulamba was also a significant winner, overcoming a brief flat spot in the middle of the race to take the Grade Two Game Spirit Chase by six-and-a-half lengths.

A narrow defeat by the 100-1 shot Poniros in last season’s Triumph Hurdle remains the only blip on Lulamba’s record and he is now three-from-three over fences and expected to set off at around 11-8 for the Arkle Trophy, the second race on the opening day at Cheltenham next month.

“You can see why we did it, it was purely to get that experience,” Henderson said. “That is why we were here and he’d have learnt a lot.”

There was an important Arkle trial at Warwick as a relentless 16-day spell of Cheltenham preps drew to a close and Sam Thomas’s Steel Ally was cut to around 10-1 for the two-mile novice chasing championship after a comfortable success in the Kingmaker Novice Chase.

Newcastle’s jumps meeting on Sunday has been abandoned meaning the only action in the UK will take place at Chelmsford.