CHIPPING Norton trainer Charlie Longsdon clocked up a sixth successive half-century of winners over jumps for a season in this country with a double at Towcester courtesy of Masterplan and Searching For Gold.

Masterplan, with the benefit of a breathing operation, provided his 49th winner by making all the running under Graham Watters for an eight-lengths victory over Garrahalish in a two-and-a-half-mile handicap chase.

And the half-century was brought up when Watters adopted similar tactics on Searching For Gold.

Bought for £88,000 after winning an Irish point-to-point last May, the five-year-old bounded up the hill to beat Delatite by six lengths in a National Hunt Flat Race over an extended mile and seven furlongs.

Longsdon had also struck earlier in the week when 12-1 shot Treackle Tart got off the mark in impressive fashion at Exeter.

The five-year-old mare stretched 11 lengths clear of Keating in a novices’ handicap hurdle over an extended two miles and five furlongs in the hands of Sam Twiston-Davies.