WILLIE Mullins is contemplating an American challenge next weekend with Nichols Canyon and Shaneshill, both owned by Andrea and Graham Wylie.

Last November officials from the Iroquois Steeplechase in Nashville, Tennessee, and Cheltenham Racecourse announced a $500,000 bonus for the connections of any horse who could win both the $200,000 Grade 1 Calvin Houghland Iroquois Hurdle and the Ryanair World Hurdle within a year.

Both contests take place over three miles, with the Calvin Houghland Iroquois Hurdle part of the 75th Iroquois Steeplechase fixture on Saturday, May 14th.

The 10 entries for this year’s Calvin Houghland Iroquois Hurdle are revealed today and include the two potential Irish runners.

Nichols Canyon is a six-time Grade 1 winner and finished third in the Champion Hurdle over two miles at Cheltenham last month behind his stable companion Annie Power. Shaneshill went close to victory at Cheltenham when the half-length runner-up in the Grade 1 RSA Chase over three miles. He fell when challenging at the last flight in a three-mile Grade 1 hurdle at Punchestown last week.

Mullins has yet to saddle a runner in the USA but is no stranger to international success, having won Japan’s very valuable Nakayama Grand Jump with Blackstairmountain in 2013.

His late father Paddy landed a major prize in the USA in 1990, when Grabel won the $750,000 Dueling Grounds International Hurdle in southern Kentucky near the Tennessee border.

Mullins said: “I am not familiar yet with what else is in the race and there a few other things I have to check out, but both horses are well and could potentially go out to the USA. At the moment, probably Nichols Canyon is the horse we would hope to get out there, if not the two of them.

“I think we need to internationalise jump racing and so I am happy to support the Brown Advisory Iroquois Cheltenham Challenge.”

Also among the 10 nominations for the Calvin Houghland Iroquois Hurdle Stakes are Demonstrative (Richard Valentine), a multiple Grade 1 winner including the 2014 and 2015 renewals of the Calvin Houghland Iroquois Hurdle, Italian Wedding (Jonathan Sheppard), successful in the 2013 Grade 1 New York Turf Writers Cup as well as the 12-year-old Pierrot Lunaire (Blythe Miller), who landed the Calvin Houghland Iroquois Hurdle back in 2009.

Other possible starters include Rawnaq (Cyril Murphy), a Grade 2 winner in Ireland who made a good impression when winning the Grade 3 Temple Gwathmey Handicap at Middleburg, Rudyard K (Todd Wyatt), Syros (Jack Fisher), Tempt Me Alex (Elizabeth Voss) and Scorpiancer (Jack Fisher), a former Irish pointer who raced with Rebecca Curtis in Wales before making a winning US debut when taking the US$100,000 Foxbrook Champion Hurdle in October.

Good to yielding ground is forecast at Iroquois.