Big rival Penhill looms in the background

JEDD O’KEEFFE has a daily reminder of one of the main rivals for the Stayers’ Hurdle. When Sam Spinner exercises on Middleham’s High Moor, he gallops in the shadow of the 1,800ft peak of Penhill, which was formed by Ice Age glaciers and commands the southern side on Wensleydale. The Willie Mullins-trained horse of the same name, which won last season’s Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle and heads back to Cheltenham in search of a second Festival win for his owner, Brighton & Hove Albion chairman Tony Bloom, was originally trained in the North Yorkshire training centre by James Bethell.