Three To Follow This Weekend

Emma Lavelle's Paisley Park is back this weekend, heading down the same route to the festival as he did last term by trying to defend his title in the Grade One Long Walk Hurdle.

The seven year old had the season of a life time last year when winning all of his seven contests including two Grade Ones, the first ever for his yard, and brought the house down at the Cheltenham festival in the Stayers Hurdle.

He is aiming to defend his Grade One title at Prestbury Park this year and went the right way about it landing the Grade Two Long Distance Hurdle at Newbury on his seasonal debut.

He was workman like that day and will be much fitter and stronger for that run heading into this contest as the odds on favourite.

On the Friday at Ascot Nicky Henderson's Angles Breath is back in action for his second run over fences after a making a superb start over the bigger obstacles at Ascot at the back end of November.

He looks to be heading back to the track over a further distance of 2 mile 5 furlongs in the Jacquart Noel Novices' Chase in another small fielded event that looks tougher than his first outing.

As a hurdler the grey looked to have a bright future but never really followed through with his potential, but being back at Ascot makes him a big player on Friday with two races and two wins at the Berkshire track in his career.

The final horse we believe will be very tough to beat and has a bright future in the game is Ribble Valley for trainer Nicky Richards and is set to be ridden by Brian Hughes who looks to be taking Richard Johnson all the way in the jockeys title.

The six year old is unbeaten on all of his three starts this year and so far this season he has been superb on both his starts at Hexham and Wetherby over hurdles.

He has taken to the flights well coming from a bumper background and the way he took the race at Wetherby last time out should see him get a lot of respect from this field.