The Stayers’ Hurdle has emerged as an unorthodox potential stepping-stone to a third tilt at the Randox Grand National for Noble Yeats.

The eight-year-old won the world’s most famous steeplechase at Aintree in 2022 and finished fourth in both the Cheltenham Gold Cup and when defending his Grand National crown last season.

Making his first appearance since the Grand Steeple-Chase de Paris in May, Noble Yeats reverted to the smaller obstacles at Limerick over the festive period – and while beaten by Sa Majeste as the 10-11 favourite, his owner Robert Waley-Cohen was satisfied with the performance.

“It was a very good first run of the season,” he said.

“I don’t think he really likes that very heavy going as it was at Limerick, but we had to start somewhere and hopefully we’ll get some better ground later in the year.”

Connections decided against entering Noble Yeats for the Gold Cup this time around, but Waley-Cohen has raised the intriguing possibility of him turning up in another major event at the Cheltenham Festival.

He added: “We’re going to enter for the Stayers’ Hurdle – if you don’t enter you can’t decide whether to go for it when the time comes.

“His main target for the year is still the Grand National. The Gold Cup is a tough race and the Grand National is a tough race and I think winning both in the same year is nigh on impossible.

“He was fourth in both last year, which was a fantastic performance, but I’d be more excited about winning one than being fourth in two!

“I don’t think he’s going to win a Gold Cup. He’s a 166-rated horse, the average Gold Cup winner is probably 175 and the very good ones might be closer to 180.”

Whether Noble Yeats runs over hurdles or fences on his next start remains to be seen, with Waley-Cohen keen to keep all options open.

He said: “We might put him in the Cleeve Hurdle, or if you want a chase where you require a lot of stamina you could look at the Cotswold Chase, in which he finished third last season.

“Let’s wait and see, but everything is being geared towards getting to the Grand National in first-class order to give ourselves the best possible chance.”

Conditions are much improved at Huntingdon after severe flooding caused by the overflowing of the Alconbury Brook.

The track is due to host a meeting on Friday, its first since November as the Peterborough Chase fixture was lost last month, as was a further fixture last week.

The Cambridgeshire circuit was virtually underwater just days ago due to the deluge brought in by Storm Henk, but most of that water has now cleared and officials are optimistic about racing going ahead on Friday.

Clerk of the course Roderick Duncan said: “The river is down to pre-flood levels, all the drainage systems are now working and the floodwater has cleared.

“There is just a small area that often accumulates at the two-mile-four (furlong) chute, but not on the racing line.

“There’s a bit of standing water that remains, but we believe we’ve an opportunity of getting this meeting on with the forecast as it is.

“We’ve had a big team in, all the ground staff at Newmarket have given us a hand because there was a lot of debris about, but we’ve found nothing of concern.

“We were lucky that racing-critical buildings like the stable yard have all been flood-defended so that water couldn’t enter them.

“We wouldn’t want a lot of frost, but our forecast indicates that we shouldn’t get it and for that reason we’d be quite optimistic.”

Exeter abandoned Tuesday’s meeting due to frost, losing a seven-race card with temperatures dropping to minus 3C overnight.

Lucinda Russell’s Apple Away could make her next start at Warwick in the Trustatrader Hampton Novices’ Chase.

The seven-year-old was a high-class novice hurdler last season, taking Grade One honours when winning the Sefton at Aintree’s Grand National meeting.

Graduating to fences this term, the mare acquitted herself well in a competitive contest on debut when finishing third at Haydock in a late November graduation chase.

She then headed to Leicester for a beginners’ chase last month, triumphing by an easy 31 lengths after a fluent round of jumping against two respectable rivals.

The mare could now take the step up to graded level over fences as she holds an entry for the Grade Two Hampton on Saturday, while she is also engaged in the William Hill Towton Novices’ Chase at Wetherby.

“She in at Warwick and Wetherby, my preference would be to go to Warwick over three miles, but we’ll just check on the ground conditions,” said Russell.

“I think three miles around Warwick would really suit her, she’s absolutely perfect after her last run and she’s back to being the queen she is!

“She’s really smart and I think at Leicester you saw that, she learnt throughout the race and by the end of it she was really confident in her jumping.”

Elsewhere in the Warwick race is Brave Kingdom, Paul Nicholls’ unbeaten eight-year-old who has two novice handicap victories to his name in two starts.

Nigel Twiston-Davies has entered Broadway Boy, an impressive winner of two successive Cheltenham contests in his last two starts.

Evan Williams has thrown Carbon King’s hat in the ring, a winner last time out at Ffos Las, while Dan Skelton may be represented by Grey Dawning, the winner of Apple Away’s chasing debut.

Joe Tizzard has an entry in The Changing Man, with Trelawne also on the list for Kim Bailey.

Joseph O’Brien is looking forward to seeing Banbridge make his belated reappearance in the Coral Silviniaco Conti Chase at Kempton on Saturday.

The eight-year-old won three of his five starts as a novice over fences last season, rounding off his campaign with a Grade One victory in the Manifesto Novices’ Chase at Aintree’s Grand National meeting.

Also a Grade Two winner at Cheltenham and placed behind the top-class pair of Mighty Potter and El Fabiolo last term, Banbridge has not been seen since his success on Merseyside nine months ago, but is poised for a comeback this weekend.

“He’s an intended runner at the moment,” O’Brien confirmed on Monday.

“He’s missed a couple of races earlier this season, just because of unsuitable ground and things have meant he hasn’t got to run, but we’re looking forward to hopefully getting him started at Kempton.

“The spring was always going to be his time, he’s training well and everything has been going well. We’ll keep an eye on the going, but we’re looking forward to getting him started all being well.”

Banbridge is one of seven entries for the Grade Two, with the sponsors making him a 2-1 joint-favourite alongside the Paul Nicholls-trained Pic D’Orhy, who was last seen winning the 1965 Chase at Ascot.

Alan King looks set to step Edwardstone up in trip, with the crack two-miler having proved no match for Jonbon in either the Shloer Chase at Cheltenham or the Tingle Creek at Sandown so far this season.

Paddy Power Gold Cup runner-up Notlongtillmay could represent Laura Morgan, while Willie Mullins could send Janidil across the Irish Sea.

Olly Murphy’s Thunder Rock and Elixir De Nutz from Joe Tizzard’s yard are the other contenders.

Bookmakers have reported turnover on Sunday evening’s historic meeting at Wolverhampton “on a par” with a typical midweek all-weather fixture.

Racing took place at Dunstall Park as the first of six trial meetings scheduled on Sunday evenings through the winter, in an attempt to boost racing’s finances through increased contribution from bookmakers to the Levy.

The card featured strong numerical fields and enhanced prize-money with a minimum of £15,000 per race, with most races run for almost three times the minimum value for their respective grade.

However, concerns remain about the well-being of the participants and winning jockeys Callum Shepherd and Robert Havlin both spoke out against the trial but felt they would lose rides in the future if they did not take part.

Coral spokesperson David Stevens said: “New initiatives such as this should always be given time to bed-in, and this first meeting was up against a big FA Cup match live on terrestrial TV (Arsenal versus Liverpool), which would have had an impact, but overall it was a very solid start, with turnover on a par with a typical evening meeting.”

Betfred’s Matt Hulmes offered a similar assessment, saying: “We took what we would normally expect on an evening all-weather meeting – it was our best performing Wolverhampton meeting of the week, but you would expect that to be the case given the increased prize-money.

“It was broadly what we take at most evening all-weather meetings, but it was the second-highest turnover meeting on the all-weather last week.”

Paddy Power painted a brighter picture, with the firm’s Paul Binfield saying the new meeting was among their best staking fixtures of the week.

He said: “The new Sunday evening fixture performed really well with competitive fields of more than 11 runners and an average favourite SP of more than 2-1.

“The card was in our top five highest-staking fixtures of the week with a double-figure stakes increase on the average Wolverhampton card over the last three months.”

Wolverhampton is part of Arena Racing Company and their group operations director Mark Spincer told Sky Sports Racing on Sunday a view would be taken after all six of the trial meetings had taken place.

“As a group we decided Sunday night could be an area that would drive Levy, it gives us opportunity to own an area – when I say ‘us’, I’m talking about the all-weather tracks – that currently doesn’t have a huge amount of sport in which could mean increased turnover, which means better Levy and overall better financial performance,” said Spincer.

“I can only speak for ARC tracks and from our point of view, whatever public we get we want to accommodate. I think there’s a nice crowd, probably 6/700 being a part of history.

“I think we need to try new things, things take time to grow, look at the Racing League or Good Friday, things take time to get established, last year’s Racing League was our best attendance, Good Friday was a record attendance last year as well.

“Can we make something of the Sunday evenings? I’m sure we can at some point remembering that there are six, it’s a trial and then we pull up stumps and everybody looks at how well it has performed or not performed and then decisions will be made on the future. I’m not prepared to make any comments past six because it’s agreed as a trial and that is exactly what we are in.”

Richard Wayman, chief operating officer at the British Horseracing Authority, said one of the main aims of Sunday racing was to help grow interest in British racing.

“One of the things we are trying to do as part of the Industry Strategy is to try to grow interest in racing and grow the number of people who follow the sport,” he said.

“We’ve got various workstreams in relation to the fixture list which are designed to try to achieve that. Make more of the big stuff on a Saturday through Premierisation and we want to improve the quality of Sunday racing and through listening to our colleagues in the betting industry, who have told us there is significant growth in the amounts of money being bet generally on a Sunday evening, (we are staging the trial).

“What we don’t know at this stage is the appetite for betting on British racing on a Sunday evening, so the purpose of the six trial meetings is just to try to ascertain what demand there is. These six fixtures will tell us what the demand is.

“Callum’s comments are perfectly understandable as this does put a lot of strain on those people servicing the fixtures such as jockeys, trainers, stable staff, our own staff, the racecourse staff servicing those fixtures as there are a lot of people involved in putting a race meeting on, so as part of the trial we will get feedback from all of those people.

“At the end of those six fixtures we’ll take a view on whether this is something we should be thinking about long term or not, but only by trying it can we make that decision.

“The betting industry will make the figures available to the BHA and we have set targets. We’d like to see these meetings outperform a regular all-weather night meeting by 15-20 per cent, even if it does do that it doesn’t necessarily mean it will carry on.”

The next Sunday evening fixture is scheduled for Chelmsford on January 21.

Henrietta Knight is feeling the nerves as she prepares to resume her training career with two potential runners at Wincanton on Friday.

The 77-year-old handed in her licence back in 2012 following a stellar career highlighted by Best Mate’s three victories in the Cheltenham Gold Cup between 2002 and 2004.

She also counted 2000 Queen Mother Champion Chase winner Edredon Bleu among her stable stars, while Somersby, Calgary Bay, Racing Demon and Lord Noelie were other leading lights for the West Lockinge yard.

Zettabyte and Ballywalter, who could contest the Start Your RacingTV Free Trial Now Handicap Hurdle and Stayers Maiden Hurdle at Wincanton respectively, are evidently some way below the calibre of those stable luminaries, but Knight admits the butterflies are setting in.

She said: “I’m quite nervous thinking about it and I think I’m more nervous than when I sent out Best Mate in his third Gold Cup.

“Lots of people have been writing about us and I think there is an expectation for us to have a winner as we had a winner with our first runner in 1989 at Bangor.

“The plan is very much to go to Wincanton on Friday providing it is on. Zettabyte would prefer better ground, while Ballywalter is not a particularly fast horse but he will love the ground. He is a very honest and game horse that jumps and stays well.

“He is owned by my niece, who will be there at Wincanton with me, and he will run in my late sister’s (Celia) colours so it will be an extremely emotional day.”

Knight has kept her hand in the racing world over the intervening years, writing several books, as well as setting up a pre-training and schooling business, which she will be continuing to operate, and acting as racing manager to the late owner Mike Grech.

She will have former trainer Brendan Powell as her assistant, while secretary Dawn Graham has returned to her old role.

Knight saddled seven Cheltenham Festival winners during her first spell in the training ranks and the ultimate goal is to add to that tally – although she does not anticipate that success in the immediate future.

She added: “I would love to have another winner at Cheltenham, but I might have to wait until I’m in my 80s for that to happen as a lot of the horses we have are young and exciting and some are only two or three years old.

“It would be my aim to have another winner at Cheltenham as you can’t describe that feeling. However, for all that those previous days there were wonderful, I never look back.

“I don’t really have the time to sit back and watch those races. Racing is about planning ahead and keeping on going forwards. You can’t keep winding the clock back.

“We are already halfway through this season, and next season we will start to have targets. At the moment, it is just going to be one step at a time, but it will be nice when we get the first winner on the board.”

Ted Walsh expects Any Second Now to be suited by conditions should he line up in Saturday’s Wigley Group Classic Chase at Warwick.

The 12-year-old is one of 21 entries for the three-mile-five-furlong feature, with his trainer eager to make an inaugural visit to the track as he seeks a winning opportunity for the veteran.

Any Second Now finished down the field on his return at Navan last month and after racing off a career-high mark of 167 in last year’s Grand National, his rating has now fallen to 148 in Ireland.

“I’ve never had a runner at Warwick, I’ve never been to Warwick, but it’s a race I’ve often watched. It suits the National-type of horse, it’s a lot of jumping and you really have to stay there which I think will suit him,” he told the Nick Luck Daily podcast.

“I’m very limited in what I can do here. He’s not good enough for the better races and I ran him at Navan off 150, but a lot of the races here are confined at 150 – he’s now 148.

“If I don’t go there, I’ll go to the Thyestes, but the Thyestes is very, very heavy ground and it’s competitive. Warwick is definitely on the agenda to go there.”

Having finished third at Aintree in 2021 and second in 2022, Any Second Now is a 33-1 shot with bet365 for this year’s marathon, but Walsh feels his chance of National glory has gone.

He said: “He’s now 12 years of age – he’s a pensioner. I haven’t any aspiration of him being a live contender for the National anymore, but I think he’s quite capable of winning a race somewhere.

“I need a lot of help (from the handicapper). He’s been a very good, consistent horse and he’s always run a good race but he’s not what he used to be, which you wouldn’t expect, and he crawled up the handicap through his good runs in the National.

“I don’t honestly think he was ever quite as high as the English handicapper rated him, he was up in the 160s at one stage. I never thought he was a Grade One horse.

“He’s a good handicapper and can win a Grade Three chase. He’s been a great servant and I’d like to think there’s another race in him somewhere and I put him in at Warwick because I think the conditions of the race will suit.”

Walsh was “absolutely shocked” last year when the British Horseracing Authority’s chase handicapper Martin Greenwood allotted Any Second Now top-weight for the National with a mark of 167, a rating the trainer still feels was inflated.

He added: “We don’t always agree with Martin Greenwood, but we’re on the other side of the fence and whatever he gives us, we would think he could give us a few pounds less, that’s the way it is.

“I didn’t think in the National last year, I’ve a good memory and he isn’t the calibre of horses I saw carry top-weight and run well in the National, the likes of L’Escargot, Crisp and Red Rum – he never was of that calibre.

“It’s up to Martin Greenwood to assess him, but I honestly thought he had what he had, but I think he wasn’t within 7lb of those horses.”

While the ante-post market for the National is still in its formative stages, a couple of those prominent in the betting are also pencilled in for Warwick.

The Jonjo O’Neill-trained Monbeg Genius leads the way as a 20-1 chance for Aintree, with the Dan Skelton-trained Galia Des Liteaux a 40-1 chance along with Malina Girl, who could be another Irish raider for Gavin Cromwell.

Other key names possible for Warwick include Beauport, Rowland Meyrick winner Fontaine Collonges, last season’s Midlands National hero Major Dundee and Guetapan Collonges, who finished fourth in last year’s renewal.

Paul Nicholls has raised the possibility of Bravemansgame contesting the Betfair Denman Chase at Newbury next month en-route to a second tilt at the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

The nine-year-old had to make do with the runner-up spot in his bid for back-to-back victories in the King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day, with Nicholls of the belief he may have held off the fast-finishing Hewick had he not been hampered by Shishkin’s exit two fences from home.

Last season Bravemansgame headed straight from the King George to the Gold Cup, in which he finished second to Galopin Des Champs, but admitted in his latest ‘Ditcheat Diary’ instalment with Betfair that he is having a change of heart as how best to approach the blue riband this time around.

“He’s come out of the race very well actually, he’s had an easy time and has kept his condition this year better than ever before,” said the champion trainer.

“There’s lots of debate going on about who would have won and I think if Shishkin and Bravemansgame hadn’t got in a bit of a muddle, it would have been really interesting. He (Bravemansgame) definitely showed signs he’s coming back to his best and I think it would have been very close.

“I was going to go straight to Cheltenham and I haven’t spoken to Bryan (Drew, owner), but I’ve spoken to Clifford (Baker, head lad) and I said ‘look, every time we went to the Gold Cup with Kauto Star or Silviniaco Conti or Denman, we always ran in the Denman Chase en-route to Cheltenham’.

“I just thought why not change tack a little bit and rather than being too hard on him at home, keep him nice and fresh and have a look, possibly, at the Denman Chase and then go on to Cheltenham.

“The Denman Chase is a possibility, I’m not saying it’s definite, but we could try to do something different with him and train him a little bit differently.”

Bravemansgame is one of two Gold Cup entries for Nicholls along with star novice Stay Away Fay.

Nicholls expects the latter to stick to novice company at the Festival at this stage, although that could change if he takes his chance and impresses in the Cotswold Chase on Festival Trials Day.

He added: “He’s very unlikely to run in the Gold Cup, I just put him in that because we were in the Cotswold Chase.

“He’s on schedule to run possibly in the Cotswold Chase, or the Reynoldstown is the other good option for him, and if you’re not in it (Gold Cup) you can’t run.

“Let’s just see how we run on our next start. I don’t think I’ve ever run a novice in the Gold Cup, but novices have won it, so it is possible.

“Last year’s winner (Galopin Des Champs) looks the one to beat – he looks head and shoulders above everybody else – but has he improved that much from when he beat Bravemansgame seven lengths last year?

“In that race the other day in Ireland (Savills Chase), he looked good, but I can’t believe he’s that far in front of all the others. Maybe he is, but we’ve got to keep all our options open.”