“He ran a little bit too free but he finished fifth and ran a great race. I think three miles, five will suit him and he should like the ground,” Nicholls told attheraces today.

“He’s relatively fresh but I still think it’s a big ask for horses that have run in the National to run again in a big race. That’s my only reservation – the National is a hard race on the horses.”

Nicholls will also be represented by 2001 winner Ad Hoc, another who ran in the National, where he unseated Ruby Walsh at the 19th fence.

“He was travelling okay at the time and I think Paul (Carberry) was happy with him, though there was still a fair way to go,” Nicholls said.

“He had a few bumps and scratches which took a while to come right but he’s worked okay since.

“Again, he is relatively fresh really, he hasn’t had a hard time since Christmas.

“I just have a feeling Ad Hoc is the fresher of the two. He’s really had one hard race since Christmas at Cheltenham and Montifault had a hard race in the National. But they’ve both got good chances.”

Meanwhile, the ground at Sandown remains good to firm, according to clerk of the course Andrew Cooper.

“We’ve been watering the jumps track for about five weeks now, the last proper rain we had at Sandown was on the Friday of the Imperial Cup meeting,” he said.

“Since then we’ve had about 5mm of rain – very, very little through a six week period.

“I’d call it good to firm, although I think it’s generally on the better side of good to firm.

“All week I’ve been saying that is the best realistically that we are going to be able to produce because not only are we watering the jumps track but we are also having to water the Flat track this season, which is a bit of a rarity for April at Sandown.

“We are going to see some rain towards the end of the week but I think even the weather men are not sure how much – they are actually scaling down the amount of rain we might see from Thursday night onwards.”