Walk In The Mill is likely to be campaigned over hurdles before the Grand National weights are released.
Robert Walford's eight-year-old produced a career-best performance to win the Becher Chase at Aintree on Saturday and his campaign will now be based around a return in April.
However, given his win came off a mark of 137 and a rise in the weights is likely to get him into the final field of 40, Walford is keen to preserve his mark.
Walk In The Mill was first reserve for the race last season and was set to take his chance after the withdrawal of Regal Encore, only to go lame on the morning of the race.
"He's fine, no issues and he's come out of it in great form," said Walford. "He'll probably run in a novice hurdle or two, we'll just look after him really.
"His jumping is not an issue, we don't want to go up the weights, but also we don't want to go down the weights - it's a tricky one these days. We're probably where we'd like to be now, so we'll try to keep him there, it's very different to how it used to be.
"Who knows if he's good enough, but we should get a run, which is the main thing after last year, which was a disaster. You can't take a lame horse to the races - it was what it was, we could not run him."
GET THE FULL PICTURE: Don't miss out on FREE video replays and our fantastic My Stable tracker. Log in now and become a Sporting Life Insider.
Related horse racing links
