Sam Thomas has been weighing up the credentials of his Coral Gold Cup contender Katate Dori, hoping he still has some improvement still in the locker.
Katate Dori climbed the chasing ranks last term from a relatively lowly mark of 110 to end up winning the valuable Ladbrokes Trophy Handicap Chase at Kempton in February from a perch of 125, and he's now another 10lb higher in the ratings for this weekend's important assignment.
The horse was beaten 12 lengths on his seasonal return over the smaller obstacles at Aintree earlier this month but his trainer isn't too concerned about that effort in the north west, with plenty of schooling over fences taking place since then.
Speaking on Sky Sports Racing, Thomas said: "To be perfectly honest, at the start of last season we were up against it with him and the boss (owner Dai Walters) is always keen to moving horses on if they aren't going to be top, weekend horses and this horse just excelled when he started jumping fences.
"He couldn't win a 0-110 (handicap) over hurdles at the start of the (last) season. So I wasn't too disappointed with him at Aintree at the start of the season. He was fit to go and do his best there but he just plugged on like he can do. I just hope we haven't reached the ceiling of his ability really, and that's the question mark to be honest that I don't know the answer to.
"We'll put the blinkers back on him, he's as fit as a flea, he had a pop around the point-to-point school last week, so he's there to go and run a big race if he's good enough."
Referring to the runaway success at Kempton earlier this year (replay below), when beating the reopposing Hyland by 15 lengths under jockey Charlie Deutsch, Thomas added: "I didn't quite know how that was going to pan out, Charlie gave him a great ride, grabbed the bull by the horns and did his own thing really.
"It's going to be a huge task running in this race at the weekend, it's a much deeper race. He's got a nice racing weight, I'm confident we've got him right, but I'm not confident we have got lots of improvement left.
"We're chucking him in at the deep end and I see him as a Scottish National type really. He's got to go up in the weights to run in a Grand National (Aintree), but I think the Scottish National would be an obvious one for me. He likes better ground and I don't think the step up to four miles would hinder him either."
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