Paul Nicholls is looking forward to seeing No Drama This End take his next steps towards stardom in Sandown's Grade 2 Betfair Winter Novices' Hurdle.
The promising five-year-old, owned by the McNeil family and Chris and Giles Barber, goes into Friday's two and a half-mile contest (13:45) on the back of a superb start over jumps having won the Grade 2 Albert Bartlett Novices' Hurdle at Cheltenham's November meeting.
Nicholls, who initially suggested the Challow Hurdle at Newbury would be the horse's next public appearance, explained the decision to turn him out again under a 5lb penalty on Friday.
He said on the Nick Luck Daily Podcast: "I was following the entry tracking on Saturday, when the entries shut, and there was only six in it. I'd see what they were and said 'we've got to be in there'.
"He'd just worked well that morning. He's fit and healthy at the moment, is in good shape and it's a decent pot. So we thought we'd let him take his chance.
"He wants soft ground, he wouldn't want it too quick. He's a strong stayer and cut in the ground is ideal."
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Nicholls also runs Quebecois, another horse part-owned by the McNeills, in the Betfair Esher Novices' Chase, a Grade 2 contest run over three miles.
He said of the six-year-old, who was runner-up to the reopposing Doyen Quest on his chasing debut at Exeter in early-November: "He ran very well on his debut first time out, he got beat by a fit horse who had had two or three runs.
"He can only build on that. He's a nice horse. He came good on the spring last year and as long as it doesn't get too soft, which I don't think it will on the chase track, he should run very well. He's a nice horse."
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