FORT WORTH A FLUTTER

journey. This mudlark is screaming out for the extra distance and he will love a slog in the Liverpool mud.

The big question when looking at the JLT Melling Chase, run over two-anda-half miles, is will the Champion Chase runner-up, Min, settle well enough in the early stages to allow himself to stay this extra distance?

Paul Townend got carted by Willie Mullins’s beast over two miles at Leopardstown over Christmas and with no confirmed front-runner in this field, I’m going to take on the favourite.

Despite reservations about the soft ground, BLAKO DES FLOS (3.25) hacked up by more than four lengths from Un De Sceaux in the Ryanair Chase run over two miles and five furlongs at Cheltenham last month.

The runner-up then franked the form when obliging at Fairyhouse over Easter.

Davy Russell gave Henry de Bromhead’s progressive chaser a corking ride in darkest Gloucestershire and he will be stalking Min all the way up the Aintree straight, before pouncing after the last.

Exciting

One horse who has a bigger affinity with Liverpool than Jurgen Klopp is ULTRAGOLD (4.05), who attempts to repeat last season’s victory in the Randox Health Topham Handicap Chase run over two miles and five furlongs of the Grand National course. Colin Tizzard’s runner was rated 136 when he tamed 28 rivals last year, so the Dorset handler has done a good job in getting him in off a perch of 141 this time.

The 10-year-old returned to this course to finish second off this mark in the Grand Sefton in December so his usual pilot, Harry Cobden, is in for another exciting ride.

On only his third spin over timber, SANTINI (4.40) ran a cracker when third in the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham last month and this improving sort can go two better in the Doom Bar Sefton Novices’ Hurdle. Before that, the six-year-old had accounted for Black Op over twoand-a-half miles at the same track in January and that horse went on to chase home Samcro in the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle at the great festival in the Cotswolds.

Irish-trained horses filled the first three places in the Cheltenham bumper, and I’m sticking with a raider, THOSEDAYSAREGONE (5.15), in the Weatherbys Bank Bumper.

Legendary Limerick trainer Charles Byrnes doesn’t bring his horses across the Irish Sea unless he thinks they can win, and this horse had a nice prep race when third at Fairyhouse under an amateur rider 11 days ago.

Davy Russell takes over in the plate so prepare for another gamble to unfold on this Wexford winner.