Jumps season preview: Langer Dan to start at Wetherby

If he makes it to Cheltenham in March, the eight-year-old will be bidding for a remarkable third successive win at the Festival having landed back-to-back victories in the Coral Cup.

However, having been placed behind Impaire Et Passe in two Graded races subsequently, handicaps don't appeal to the trainer as being an option for his star.

In our stable tour, currently exclusively available to Sporting Life Plus customers, the trainer said: “We have just got to go full graded races with him now.

"I do have concerns about how he behaves in the autumn and the winter because historically he hasn’t been as good.

"He bled the run before Cheltenham last season and he has never done that before. He just gets a lot easier in the spring, but he is going to have to come around to a different way of thinking.

"We are going to go for the 'West Yorkshire Hurdle' and we will see how that goes. We could then go on to Newbury for the Long Distance Hurdle then the Long Walk Hurdle at Ascot. If he acquitted himself well in those three then he would have to be a Stayers’ Hurdle horse and that is the route we will hopefully go down this year.

“If he ends up running in a Coral Cup again it will be off top weight, but you would have serious concerns about that as he is not the biggest.

"Unless the first three runs are absolutely diabolical we want to have a go at the Stayers’ Hurdle. He is now rated 160 and there is nothing to suggest he won’t continue running well as he showed improved form at the back end of the year at Aintree and Sandown."

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