Gordon Elliott has put forward Death Duty as his best handicapped runner at the Cheltenham Festival, after the weights for the nine handicap races were revealed today.

Cheltenham Racecourse hosted a press conference this afternoon to reveal the weights,and speaking on the phone, Elliott, was has saddled 32 Festival winners, said: “I’ve just had a quick look at the weights and I suppose the best handicapped one I’ve got is probably Death Duty in the Ultima - he’s down 1lb. Most of my others are up around 4-6lbs and I understand that the handicapper has a job to do, but Death Duty is the one who’s dropped a bit.

Elliott expects to have his biggest team at the Festival this year, and said on Monday he could have 55 horses declared to run over the four days.

Notable

He went on to pick out some of the other notable names among his team for the handicaps.

“Frontal Assault will run in the Kim Muir," he confirmed. "He’s up 6lbs and he’ll just get into it, so we’re looking forward to running him.

“Top Bandit hasn’t done anything wrong so far, but this is going to be his biggest test in the County Hurdle. He looks like he’s got a nice weight in it and he’s in good form.

“Buddy Rich has got 11 stone and he’s off 144, so he’s up 6lbs. He runs well fresh and will like the ground and should be right there.

“Sire Du Berlais qualified for the Pertemps at Warwick and he’s only a pound higher than he is in Ireland off 156. Rob James is going to ride him and take 7lbs off him so that will leave him with a nice weight in the race off 11-05. I’d think we’ll be using Rob’s claim on some of our higher horses in the handicaps at Cheltenham this year, we think he’s great value for his claim considering all of the point-to-point winners he’s ridden.

“Fil Dor would be a doubtful runner at the top of the Boodles as he’s more likely to go for the Triumph. The Tide Turns is only up 2lbs from his Irish mark and we’re happy enough for him to go. I thought he really caught the eye at Gowran Park the last day and we’ll probably run five in that race.”

Speaking at a press morning at his Cullentra base on Monday, Elliott expressed a desire to have a universal rating system for Britain and Ireland.

He said: "If they picked a number and you knew what the number was, I’d be happy with it. I don’t really understand, it baffles me why horses can have a different rating. We aren’t not all judged off the same rating on both sides, are we that much better?

"In this day and age like, all these handicappers should be working off a level playing field, and have a European rating, whether they’re 5lb higher or lower, every horse.

"At the end of the day, it’s only an opinion, and we’ve all got a different opinion in every walk of life, but if we had a bit more consistency I think everyone would be happier."