Bothy can finally reward Ellison at Cheltenham

In both 2002 and 2003, Latalomne was leading the Queen Mother Champion Chase when falling at the penultimate fence with the race at his mercy.

"I watched the video the other night – and it still gives me nightmares. I'm sure he would have won," said the Malton trainer, who watched Flagship Uberalles and the Irish legend Moscow Flyer make the most of his misfortune.

Ellison is hopeful that he can break his Festival duck with the unheralded Bothy, a 10-1 chance for Wednesday's Fred Winter Juvenile Novices Handicap Hurdle.

Three from three over hurdles, he has formed an effective partnership with in-form Richmond jockey Keith Mercer, who has opted to ride Bothy rather than Kudu Country, trained at Tadcaster by Tom Tate.

Bothy will certainly have no worries making the long journey to the Cotswolds; his last two victories were at Taunton as Ellison sought to achieve a handicap rating to guarantee his horse's participation at the National Hunt Festival. "We needed a handicap mark, and, with the weather, Taunton was the place to go," said Ellison.

"I bought him out of the Newmarket sales. I think he's a good horse – but it's very hard to gauge until you take on the best.

"He's done nothing wrong at the moment."

Ellison is used to overcoming obstacles. The son of a Tyneside shipbuilder, and one of eight children, he hoped to go into football as a teenager.

But, at 4ft 9ins and weighing 6st 5lb, he was too small and the seed was sown to become a jockey. Aged 15 and having never sat on a horse, Ellison joined Middleham trainer Harry Blackshaw on 4.50 a week, 4.00 of which went on his accommodation.

His riding career was more impressive for its length – 1968 to 1989 – than its successes, the most notable of which was when Tex lowered the colours of Champion two-mile chaser Tingle Creek at Worcester.

Ellison's training career has been a different story. Based latterly at his own yard in Malton with a pool of 30 horses, he has been more recently associated with the Flat veteran Carte Diamond, who defied death in Australia.

After travelling halfway around the world and running ninth in the Caulfield Cup, his Australian jockey's stirrup leather came undone in training, he fell off and Carte Diamond galloped loose before running into a rail which went through the top of the horse's leg.

Winning at Cheltenham would provide Ellison with some welcome consolation for life's setbacks, and it would be a fitting reward for Mercer, who has become a major force in Northern racing this season after a number of years that were too quiet for the liking of the jockey who won the 2005 Scottish National on Joes Edge.

He has twice finished fourth at the Festival but is confident that Bothy can withstand the hurly burly of a highly competitive Fred Winter field.

"Taunton will have stood him in good stead. It was a handicap, against older horses on quite soft ground," said Mercer who finished fourth on Ellison's 100-1 shot in Saturday's Imperial Cup at Sandown.

"He will need similar battling qualities on Wednesday. He is fairly laid back and only does what you ask him to do. But, when I've shaken him up, he's gone about his job well and given the impression that he has more to give."