Can Crambo kick in the turbo or will Balboa come out fighting? Graeme Rodway's Long Walk analysis

There was once a clear path for horses going to Cheltenham. The staying chasers would have their big mid-season target as the King George before being put away for the Gold Cup and the two-milers over fences would often go for the Tingle Creek before the Champion Chase.

For the staying hurdlers, the Long Walk was always their big mid-season race, second only in prominence to the Stayers’ Hurdle itself, but that has become a little muddled in recent years.

The Irish dominance of the Stayers’ Hurdle means you have to turn the clock back five years to find the last Long Walk winner to follow up at Cheltenham and that was Paisley Park, who returns to try to equal the great Baracouda, the only horse to have won this race four times.