JAMES Reveley will take the ride on Grand National winner Noble Yeats when he makes his seasonal return for trainer Emmet Mullins at Auteuil today.

With the retirement of his amateur rider owner Sam Waley-Cohen after riding the family-owned 50/1 winner of the Aintree showpiece with his last ride at the venue in April, Reveley will be aboard the seven-year-old as he lines up in the Grade 3 Prix Heros XII Chase. The twice-crowned champion jockey in France is again leading the standings.

The Emmet Mullins-trained Noble Yeats will take on 12 rivals in the two-and-three-quarter-mile chase, with all roads leading to a return to Aintree.

Owner Robert Waley-Cohen said: “We are all very happy, he is in good form and arriving at Auteuil (Wednesday) and James Reveley will be schooling him.

“It is an intermediate distance at 4,400 metres, so dramatically different from the National, but the ground is appropriate, and it is a good race in which he gets no penalties, because they don’t count handicaps, and it is a nice place to start our season. There is enough in our favour.

“His next race, depending on how he goes on Saturday, will be a race where we can find out whether he is just a very fine handicapper or the potential to be a good distance horse.

“Obviously, you have to work backwards from the National, don’t you?”

Group 2

There are two British-trained runners in the Group 2 Prix du Conseil de Paris at ParisLongchamp on Sunday with William Haggas sending over his former Champion Stakes winner Addeyeb for the 11-furlong contest.

Alan King’s Raymond Tusk joins him in among a field of five. Monty, winner last time of the Group 3 La Coupe de Maisons-Laffitte, looks the danger of the home team.

Japan

HANSHIN Racecourse hosts the top action this weekend, with the 27th running of the Grade 1 Shuka Sho. The 10-furlong turf contains 16 of Japan’s top three-year-old fillies.

This year, the Fillies’ Triple Crown is on the line as Stars On Earth aims to add another big victory to the first two legs: the Oka Sho (Japanese 1000 Guineas) and the Yushin Himba (Japanese Oaks). If she can pull it off, she’ll become the seventh filly to sweep the Classics and secure the Fillies’ Triple Crown.

Stars On Earth’s biggest rivals seem to be Stunning Rose, a Grade 3 winner last time and second to the favourite in the Japanese Oaks; Art House, just off a win in the Kansai Telecasting Corp. Sho Rose Stakes; and Namur, who finished third in the Oaks.