Edwarstone and Third Time Lucki could provide Arkle clues from Warwick showdown

Alan King’s Edwardstone opened his chasing account at this venue in November before dominating his rivals in the Henry VIII Novices’ Chase at Sandown and the Wayward Lad at Kempton.

“Everything has gone very smoothly with him since we started building him up for this. It’ll be a proper race, but a bit of match practice won’t do him any harm,” said King. “He’s had a nice freshen up since Christmas and he’s a horse I wouldn’t want to be too fresh going to Cheltenham, so this race slotted in well.

“The ground should be fine so we’ll see what happens.”

Third Time Lucki won at Wetherby last October and was impressive in winning his first two chase starts at Cheltenham, but faded into third place in the Henry VIII – beaten 16 lengths by Edwardstone.

He got back on track with a wide-margin victory in the Lightning Novices’ Chase at Doncaster a fortnight ago and trainer Dan Skelton is looking forward to the rematch.

He said: “Having seen more and more of our horse, especially at Doncaster the other day, you can see how effective he is when he can use all of his speed.

“He’s a very, very quick horse, a little bit like Nube Negra – they’re very quick horses.

“We’ve learnt a lot as we’ve gone on through this season with him and I’m looking forward to running him on Saturday.”