Neptune Collonges (Right) races at Leopardstown in his final prep race (Getty)

Shropshire owner John Hales is confident Neptune Collonges can upset the form book by beating Kauto Star to win this year's Cheltenham Gold Cup.

Neptune Collonges came third in last year's Gold Cup behind the winner Denman and Kauto Star but Hales said his horse has every chance on 13 March.

"I'm quietly confident he'll go better than last year. I think they have problems with Denman.

"I don't see him as the danger, Kauto Star is the horse we have to beat."

Hales told BBC Radio Shropshire: "I keep thinking this could be our year. This could be his chance of winning the Gold Cup."

Neptune Collonges had success last year after becoming the first horse to win the Guinness Gold Cup in back-to-back years at the Punchestown Festival.

The horse, trained by Paul Nicholls and ridden by Ruby Walsh, won by seven lengths.

Hales, from Cosford, will run the seven-year-old at Leopardstown on Sunday in the Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup in his final prep race before the Cheltenham Festival in March.

"I hope he'll win," he said. "If he jumps round clear he should do that.

"We've deliberately kept him back because he definitely gets better as the season goes on and when you get to March and April he becomes a different horse."

Hales has enjoyed success at the Cheltenham Festival before with the great One Man, who won the Queen Mother Champion Chase in 1998, in what proved his penultimate race.

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