Emma Lavelle is looking forward to stepping up Highland Valley and Court In Motion in class if Cheltenham's meeting beats the weather.
Up in class
Court In Motion and Highland Valley could represent Emma Lavelle in the Grade Two Albert Bartlett Novices' Hurdle at Cheltenham on Saturday.
The Hampshire handler feels that both deserve to take their chance at that level if the meeting beats the big freeze.
"Court In Motion has a bit more experience than Highland Valley has in that he had a couple of runs over hurdles last season and looked as though he was going to dot up in his first one at Exeter and jumped the last and sort of two strides later stepped on his own feet and turned himself upside down," she said.
"So we thought we may as well keep him for a novice this season so he's had a little bit more experience than Highland Valley but they're two nice horses and they probably deserve their chance at running in a Grade Two."
Their prospects of running though may depend on there being some cut in the ground.
"They're both good moving scopey horses and Court In Motion hits the ground fairly hard and from an injury point of view I definitely would be wanting soft ground for him and Highland Valley both of the races that he's won have both been on heavy ground so i wouldn't be in a mad rush to go and run him on good ground either but they've hopefully got long futures and i don't want to shorten them by running them on the wrong surface for the sake of it."
Their futures may lie over fences but their handler is delighted with the progress that they've made so far this season but is frustrated by the weather.
"They both went to Exeter for consecutive meetings and both won really well, two really big nice, scopey horses who look as though they should have a very good future over fences in time so delighted with how they have started the season, it's just been so frustrating with the weather that we haven't been able to just continue on," she added.
Bouggler misses out
Two horses from the yard unlikely to take up their entries at Prestbury Park are Bouggler and Heez A Cracker.
The latter is likely to head to Ascot whilst the trainer feels that Bouggler may benefit from more experience before being stepped up in grade.
"I think that there's no point taking all of those on at this stage of the season and so we're going to find another straightforward novice chase for him (Bouggler) but he's in good form and I'm looking forward to seeing him back out over fences."
