Oliver Sherwood plans to send Many Clouds to Kelso for his final run before his bid for back-to-back Grand National wins.
Many Clouds finished second to Smad Place in the BetBright Trial Chase at Cheltenham on Saturday, having beaten the same horse in that race 12 months ago.
Last season, Many Clouds subsequently finished sixth in the Cheltenham Gold Cup before going on to beat Saint Are in the Grand National at Aintree.
This year, though, Sherwood plans to bypass Cheltenham and has instead lined up a trip to Kelso in early March for Many Clouds after being left satisfied by his run behind Smad Place.
Sherwood told Racing UK: “Nobody likes being second, you like to win, but I was delighted with the way he travelled in the race, he jumped super.
“I’m very glad Smad Place didn’t have a prep race before the Hennessy last year as we’d have struggled to win the Hennessy last year!
“It was a good National trial. He’ll come on for the run. In an ideal world I don’t think we’d probably be mad on that ground, but he has handled it and we would have taken that at the start of the day.
“We”ll go up to Kelso. There are five weeks to that and then five weeks to the National, so that’s the plan.”
