Sunday

It’s fair to say the jumps season ramped up a notch last weekend with brilliant meetings at Newbury and Fairyhouse and the return to winning ways of Yorkhill in Newcastle’s Betfair Rehearsal Chase.

The action moves to Aintree and Sandown this week with the Merseyside track staging its second most important meeting of the season on ground currently described as soft.

A number of big handicap chases in the early part of the season have been won by front runners and Paul Nicholls’ Yala Enki will presumably bid to carry on that trend in the William Hill Becher Handicap Chase at 1.30 over the famous Grand National fences.

He has a one pound turnaround at the weights for the nose he was beaten by Ramses De Teillee at Cheltenham three weeks ago although the latter has been round this course once before in a National, a run that ended prematurely when his reins broke. That said it’s fair to say he wouldn’t have been involved in the finish and hadn’t really exhibited a flair for the unique obstacles.