Nico de Boinville: “Grand Roi looked and felt like a very good horse last time”

Cheltenham

12.15pm

Welsh Saint

I was pretty impressed with him at Warwick last time. This is obviously a fair step up in class but he did it very easily last time, against fair horses as well, so this brother to the very smart Grade 2-winning chaser Irish Saint is well worth his place in the line-up. I can see him going close, in fact.

2.35pm

Might Bite

Things obviously didn’t go to plan at Aintree last time, which was annoying as we really wanted to see where we stood with him after a season to forget. But it makes sense to put him back over hurdles and get his confidence restored, and certainly a mark of 160 in this sphere would underestimate his raw ability. But the important thing is that he shows us more of his old self here, and we can build on it. I schooled him over 10 hurdles on Tuesday morning and he felt in very good order.

3.10pm

William Henry

He obviously put up a brilliant performance when winning the Coral Cup here before probably not showing quite the same level of form at Aintree. He has a 4lb penalty to carry here on his first start back and maybe he is best suited by a bigger field and a strong pace, but he certainly has the class to figure prominently and hopefully a wind op since his Aintree run will have helped him, too.

3.50pm

Grand Roi

This looks a decent bumper but I’d say Grand Roi will probably be favourite after beating Audacity by 15 lengths at Wincanton on his debut for us. He surprised us a bit there but he really looked and felt like a very good horse, and he is an exciting prospect.