GORDON Elliott could have some fun this season, sorting out his top staying novice chasers.

You have to do a double-take in order to be sure that Champagne Classic is still a novice, and that he will be so for the entire campaign, but he is and he will. Winner of the Grade 1 three-mile novices’ hurdle at the 2017 Punchestown Festival, he had a truncated time of it last season. He didn’t start off until January, he was only just beaten by Chris’s Dream in the Grade 2 Ten Up Chase on his second run of the season, and then a setback ruled him out for the rest of the term.