THE Supreme Novices’ Hurdle it ain’t, you’ll have to wait just a few more days for the Cheltenham roar, but the Betfair Imperial Cup at Sandown is always an interesting race (and worth £100,000, almost as much as the County Hurdle) and it is rendered all the more interesting this year by the presence of the Willie Mullins-trained Batman Girac.

It is not a race that Irish trainers generally patronise with any degree of regularity or success. Peter Fahey won the race with Suprise Package three years ago, and that was the first Irish-trained winner of the race since Ado McGuinness won it with Victram, one of the flagship horses of the early throes of his training career, in 2006.

Willie Mullins has never won it. Then again, he hasn’t had a runner in the race since Wicklow Brave ran in it 10 years ago.

Batman Girac goes there with a real chance though today. The Bathyrhon gelding hasn’t won since he has joined Willie Mullins, but he kept good company last season as a juvenile hurdler, among a clutch of talented juvenile hurdlers, and he was running a fine race in the listed two-mile handicap hurdle that McLaurey won at the Dublin Racing Festival, when he came down at the final flight.

Held up early on that day by J.J. Slevin, and still only 14th of the 17 remaining runners as they jumped the second last flight, he made good ground from there, and he picked up in a share of fifth place at the final flight.

He wouldn’t have beaten the winner if he hadn’t come down, and he may not have beaten his stable companion Storm Heart for the runner-up spot, but he would have finished fifth at worst, and he could have finished third or fourth. Either way, it was a fine run.

Fast pace

A keen-going sort, he should get the fast pace today that suits him well, with a few horses who like to get on with things in opposition, including Knickerbockerglory and Big Ginge. He has been given a mark of 135 in Britain though, 6lb higher than the Irish mark off which he raced at Leopardstown last time, and that just makes things a little more difficult than they might have been.

Afadil and Sorceleur are both interesting for Paul Nicholls, who has won two of the last five renewals of this, and Tintintin would come into it if it turned into a test of stamina at the trip, and Spirits Bay and Bo Zenith have been well-backed, and Go Dante has surely been targeted at the race again by Olly Murphy.

A 3lb drop from the handicapper for his defeat at Newbury last time leaves him on a mark of 127, 2lb lower than the mark off which he won the race last year.

But he is only 6lb better off with Lump Sum for an eight-and-a-half-length defeat in that William Hill Hurdle at Newbury, and that may not be enough to enable him reverse placings.

There is a lot to like about Lump Sum besides. He travelled into the Newbury race really well from the rear and, while he couldn’t match Joyeuse in the end, he kept on well to take second place behind her.

Time may prove that he faced an improbable task, trying to concede 18lb to Nicky Henderson’s mare, who was supplemented to the Mares’ Hurdle on Tuesday.

The handicapper raised Lump Sum by 3lb for that run, but that was fair. Winner of the Grade 2 Dovecote Hurdle at Kempton last season, he won the Welsh Champion Hurdle on his debut this season, and he got closest of all to Sir Gino in the Grade 1 Fighting Fifth Hurdle. He does have to shoulder top weight today, but Dylan Johnson’s 3lb claim – which he couldn’t utilise in the Fighting Fifth Hurdle or in the Christmas Hurdle – comes in handy in that regard, and he has the potential to go beyond his mark of 147.

He is another hold-up horse who should have the race run to suit and, while he has never run at Sandown, he proved that he could operate at a right-handed track with his victory in the Dovecote Hurdle last season. And Sam Thomas has his horses in really good form. Katate Dori was a seriously impressive winner of the Ladbrokes Trophy at Kempton two weeks ago, and Steel Ally was only just beaten in the National Spirit Hurdle, while Vincenzo ran well to finish second in the Greatwood Gold Cup at Newbury last Saturday.

The trainer has had seven runners in the last two weeks, and all seven have finished in the first three.

Handicap chase

Later on the day, Java Point could be the value in the three-mile handicap chase.

Henry Oliver’s horse is 10 now, and he was pulled up the last time we saw him in the three-mile handicap chase that Victtorino won at Ascot last month, but that obviously wasn’t his running, it was his first run at Ascot and it was his first run back since December.

He is better judged on the form that he showed at Cheltenham in November, when he finished second behind the talented Transmission, or on the form that he showed at Cheltenham in December, when he kept on to take fourth place in a three-and-a-quarter-mile handicap chase, keeping on well after getting a little out-paced on the run down the hill.

He gets to race off a handicap rating now that is 4lb lower than the mark off which he raced that day, when he was 2lb out of the handicap, and that, combined with the drop in grade, gives him a big chance.

He goes well on the ground, and he goes well at Sandown, he won a handicap chase over today’s course and distance in February last year on good ground off a mark of 126, just 1lb lower than the mark off which he races today.

Lump Sum, 2.25 Sandown, 8/1 (generally), 1 point each-way

Java Point, 3.35 Sandown, 9/2 (generally), 1 point win