'My idea was always to take her across the Channel' - French trainer Mickael Seror eyes Boxing Day Grade 1

French trainer Mickael Seror will be joining the team heading across the Channel at Christmas after confirming Grade 1 runner-up July Flower will take her chance in the inaugural Formby Novices' Hurdle at Aintree on Boxing Day.

While crack chaser Il Est Francais is set to test himself against some of the best British novices at Kempton on the same day for Noel George and Amanda Zetterholm, July Flower and France's champion jockey elect, Felix de Giles, will tackle the replacement race for Sandown's Tolworth Hurdle.

Having won a pair of AQPS (non-thoroughbred) bumpers, including a Grade 1 at Fontainebleau last November, July Flower was purchased to race in the colours of Caolan Woods. But after failing to run her race in the Grade 2 mares' bumper at the Grand National meeting for Henry de Bromhead, July Flower returned to Seror's Chantilly base, since when she has flourished, recording two wins over hurdles at Auteuil and finishing second in the Grade 1 Prix Renaud du Vivier at the track last month.