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.