Vibrato is the biggest Arkle threat to Sceaux

The seven-year-old will ensure there is no hiding place as he loves to bowl along in front and run his rivals into the ground.

He overcame a blip when he came down on his fencing debut, when well clear at Thurles in November, to win in good style at Fairyhouse the following month.

Un De Sceaux then took the Grade One Irish equivalent of the Arkle at Leopardstown on his only subsequent start in impressive fashion by 15 lengths from Clarcam.

His trainer, Willie Mullins, is already seeing him as a future Queen Mother Champion Chase contender.

“He’s the type of chaser you love to train – the really fast two-miler that will maybe make into a champion chaser some day,” said the County Carlow handler.

“His style of racing makes the whole thing very heart-stopping, but that’s the way it is and that’s what we have.

“He’s an extraordinarily short price, but the punters and the bookmakers have all decided if he stands up he wins.

“I’m happy to go along with that!”

His main market rival is the Paul Nicholls-trained Vibrato Valtat, who has done nothing but improve all season and has won his last three races in tremendous style.

Nicholls said: “He is obviously progressive and his rating of 162 is extremely high for a novice – at this stage of his career he is rated higher than Azertyuiop.

“Un De Sceaux has looked awesome when he gets round, but he has fallen once and he might find the Arkle different to the small fields he’s been running in.

“If he gets in a rhythm, he’ll be very hard to beat.”