GRAND National winner Noble Yeats is one of six declared for Saturday’s Boylesports Many Clouds Chase at Aintree.

Trained by Emmet Mullins, he showed no ill effects from a disappointing trip to France earlier in the season when winning at Wexford last time out but he faces much sterner opposition this weekend.

Lucinda Russell’s Ahoy Senor may have run well below form on his reappearance in the Charlie Hall but he has two Grade 1s to his credit, over both hurdles and fences, at Aintree and is likely to be a different proposition

Nicky Henderson’s Chantry House, Ruth Jefferson’s Sounds Russian and Anthony Honeyball’s Sam Brown have also been declared.

As has Dashel Drasher, trained by Jeremy Scott, who won over hurdles at the track in November but is set to head back over fences before options in both spheres are likely to be explored later in the season.

He had been due to run at Newbury last week in the Long Distance Hurdle but fast ground ruled him out.

He holds an entry in the Long Walk Hurdle at Ascot on December 17, but Scott is fearful of the long-term forecast.

He said: “He seems to like Aintree and, at the moment, if the ground stays similar to how it is, that will pretty much be the plan."

“The owners and us are keen to see him run over a bit more of a trip, because the three-mile hurdling division does not look as strong as some of the others.”

Though he will line up for the Grade 2 chase, the Brompton Regis handler hopes he can still develop into a cracking staying hurdler, even with a mid-term target of the Grade 1 Ascot Chase in February on the radar, a race he won in 2021.

“The Grade 1 Ascot Chase is very much in our thinking, but we’ll need God to water the course.

“It is so frustrating. Newbury would have been perfect really. We could have run there and then made a call on what we would do for the rest of the season.

“He would have had no penalties there, whereas you go to the Long Walk and everybody is off level weights. It is not ideal, but it is what it is and we’ll have to make the best of it.

“It will take a huge amount of water to make it what I’d consider to be proper winter ground – and it will come, eventually.”