Kirby keeping options open for Lady Buttons

The seven-year-old won four times over hurdles and kicked off the new campaign by finishing second to subsequent Kempton scorer La Bague Au Roi at Wetherby on Charlie Hall Chase day – the race was only decided on the run-in.

Lady Buttons then made a successful debut over fences at Bangor and Kirby is looking forward to getting her back on the racecourse. The Richmond trainer said: “She’s in good order and pretty much ready to run.

“There are a couple of ordinary novice chases we’re looking at, one at Wetherby on December 9 and another at Newcastle on December 14. If it looked like one of those was a penalty kick we might run her just to give her a bit more experience really.

“If not, we could just run her in the Listed mares’ novice chase at Warwick, which is also on December 14.”

Lady Buttons will not be wrapped in cotton wool, with her North Yorkshire trainer considering two outings before the end of 2017.

Kirby added: “There are a couple of options over Christmas, too. There’s a mares’ chase at Doncaster (December 29) and also a mares’ hurdle at Leopardstown.

“We feel she doesn’t really need a big gap between her races, which is why we’re thinking of running her before Christmas, but if we felt it didn’t fit in then we could just wait.

“I’d like to stick to chasing if we can, but even though there’s a good mares’ programme, there actually isn’t over two miles. There is no perfect race for her at Cheltenham in March, so we’ll just have to see what happens between now and then.”