Max McNeill saluted a “fantastic training performance” by Alan King after Masaccio defied a 572-day absence with a victory at Newbury to strengthen his Coral Gold Cup claims.
The nine-year-old lined up for the Pertemps Network Handicap Hurdle on Thursday having not been seen on track since landing an Ayr handicap chase in April 2025.
The Barbury Castle-based grey, a 33-1 shot, finished strongly on his reappearance to edge out Miami Magic and part-owner McNeill would love to see him return to the Berkshire circuit for their feature handicap chase on November 21.
“It was incredible. I said to Alan afterwards he gave me as much pleasure as a winner I can remember. It was as good as a winner I’ve had for a while,” he said.
“It was just so pleasing because he’s been out, he’s had a couple of setbacks and they’ve kept him out for the season, and you always wonder whether they’re going to come back with the same sort of desire to race.
“It was such a great training performance. Alan does it down a bit when I spoke to him about it on Friday morning, but make no mistake, that was a fantastic training performance to get that horse back and win what was a competitive race.”
While Masaccio could now return to chasing, he is of course now qualified for the Pertemps Final at the Cheltenham Festival in March.
McNeill admitted he favoured a tilt at the Coral Gold Cup and said: “That’s where we’d all love to go. Thursday was just about a warm-up for that, so I wasn’t thinking about the race itself, as good as it was.
“It was great to win the Pertemps race because Pertemps is a company that I know well and it’s a fantastic initiative that they have, watching these races throughout the season with the final at Cheltenham – and it gives horses like Masaccio a back-up option.
“But when he won at Ayr last year ‘Kingy’ said ‘right, all plans lead to the Coral Gold Cup. Of course, that didn’t work out, but here we are just a year later and it is very much the plan again.
“I guess we’ll just see what happens there. We’d love to go to some of these bigger three-mile staying chase handicaps throughout the season and maybe the Ultima at Cheltenham would be a nice race.”
Share