The teenage daughter of Paul Nicholls is looking forward to teaming up with a horse named after a Premier League legend.

It will be the match of the day on Friday when Olive Nicholls, 19, climbs aboard Shearer, a nine-year-old jumper part-owned by ardent Blackburn Rovers fan Max McNeill.

McNeill chose to call the horse, whose dam is called The Crown Jewel, after striker Alan Shearer, and BBC Match Of The Day pundit, who led Rovers to a Premier League championship.

He has won eight times and, now owned jointly with 14-time champion trainer Nicholls, is on a four win streak, the last two in hunter chases ridden by Olive.

At odds of 10-1, Shearer will be one of Nicholls’s best chances of success at the Cheltenham Festival in the race known as ‘the Amateurs Gold Cup’.

Olive, who has ridden 15 winners under rules, has already ridden once in the race but this will be the first time she has ridden in it on a horse trainer by her Dad.

“It’s really exciting and as long as Shearer bounces out of his two runs, then I think he could have a chance.

“Dad’s obviously done a great job to get him back on the track full stop – and it does make it more special riding him for dad.