Fingal Bay is unbeaten in five starts over hurdles this year
PICTURE: Edward Whitaker (racingpost.com/photos)Unbeaten Fingal all set for Aintree Sefton test
FINGAL BAY, who missed the Cheltenham Festival following a training setback, is all set to reappear in the Grade 1 John Smith's Sefton Novices Hurdle at Aintree on Friday.
Philip Hobbs's charge is unbeaten in five starts, including a two-and-three-quarter-length victory over Simonsig. He was the longtime ante-post favourite for the Neptune Investment Management Novices' Hurdle at Cheltenham last month, but pulled a hamstring a couple of weeks before the meeting and was ruled out.
Hobbs said: "Now the rain has come and the word soft is in the going at Aintree, I think Fingal Bay will be going there rather than Punchestown which we had considered originally.
"He seems to have made a full recovery from the slight problem he sustained just before Cheltenham and is back working with all his old enthusiasm at home."
However, Hobbs may still decide to take in the Punchestown Festival with the six-year-old and added: "It will all depend on how he runs at Aintree and if he wins I will talk it over with his owner Roger Skan and we might go to Punchestown as well."
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