My top ten: Stuart Riley with his approach to the returning Ten To Follow

The return of the Ten To Follow competition is fantastic news for jumps fans. With a huge pool of talented horses to choose from, strategy plays a huge part to how successful your team will be, so here are the important things to consider.

Bonus races

Horses who can target multiple bonus races are always attractive, whether that’s stayers for the Ladbrokes Trophy, Welsh Grand National, Grand National/Scottish National/bet365 Gold Cup; the King George and Ryanair/Gold Cup or the Irish Champion Hurdle, Champion Hurdle and Aintree Hurdle.

The inclusion of the Racing Post Arkle and RSA Chase as bonus races means novice chasers should also be in demand with Grade 1s the most valuable outside of the bonus races and finding a horse that can dominate the novice events can result in a solid points return – and they are more likely to run more often as they need to gain experience.

Staying power

The marathon handicap chaser should be the backbone of any team as there are just so many bonus races for them to target and the likes of Mister Malarky and Discorama – added to Tiger Roll – are a potent combo. If any horse can win races en route to Aintree without ruining their mark it is the latter.

Utility players

Lostintranslation, Cyrname and Altior are flexible enough in terms of trip that they have many bonus race options – so they also have to go in. Novice chasers like City Island and Minella Indo should rack up plenty of points, and that leaves space for two hurdlers – Klassical Dream can dominate in Ireland and is likely to target at least two bonus races while Paisley Park is another who should rack up points.

Conundrum horse

So impressive was Samcro’s chasing debut it is tempting to slot him in somewhere, while we have not even mentioned the likes of Douvan, Min and Al Boum Photo who could easily end the season with a ton of points between them – but such is the challenge of the Ten To Follow that you have to leave good horses out.

It is about building a list that covers as many of the bonus races as possible, ideally with multiple runners, and horses that will be campaigned to also win races in between.

The ten

1. Altior
2. Cyrname
3. City Island
4. Discorama
5. Klassical Dream
6. Lostintranslation
7. Minella Indo
8. Mister Malarky
9. Paisley Park
10. Tiger Roll

Stuart Riley was writing in the Racing Post Weekender, your must-have guide to the week's best previews, tips, cards, form and opinion - available every Wednesday