It is looking increasingly likely that Binocular will feature in the Smurfit Kappa Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham despite his trainer, Nicky Henderson, ruling him out of the race a month ago due to a muscle condition. He is currently 9/1 seventh favourite for the feature.

Binocular finished third in last year’s event and Henderson’s hopes are high this time around. He is drawing confidence from Binocular’s performance against current favourite, Go Native (11/4), in the Christmas Hurdle at Kempton.

“We weren’t happy with him on the day, it wasn’t him, yet he was still only beaten a length and a half by Go Native, so we only have to find two lengths and we are back where we are,” Henderson stated.

Binocular’s participation in next Tuesday’s race is dependent on him pleasing connections in a workout on Friday but he came through a tough test on Wednesday when Tony McCoy rode him over 13 flights of hurdles.

“He had a hiccup, but he’s back now. He’s in really good form, AP (McCoy) came down and schooled him yesterday and we think we are three-quarters of the way to getting him back to where we need him to be.

“There’s just one more bit of work to do tomorrow when again AP’s going to come and ride him. And if he’s happy there I think we’ll give him the green light.”

Henderson accepts that Binocular is not currently at his best but he is remaining optimistic about Cheltenham.

“He hasn’t impressed everybody all season. He won his last start very easily, but even so it wasn’t quite the same Binocular we know we can have.”

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