Blackstair ready for Grand Jump Connections of Blackstairmountain are anticipating an improved performance as he lines up in Saturday's Nakayama Grand Jump in Japan. The two-mile-five-furlong heat boasts a first prize in excess of £400,000 and will provide Blackstairmountain with a second outing at Nakayama racecourse in Tokyo. Willie Mullins' eight-year-old was a well-beaten ninth on his Japanese bow in the Pegasus Jump, a trial event held over a half-mile shorter trip last month. However, Emmet Mullins, who has been overseeing the gelding's preparations, believes he learnt plenty for the experience, which included starting from stalls. "He's fit and well and the weather is good over here for the big race, so hopefully he can run a big race," he told At The Races. "He was just very slow (out of the stalls last time). I suppose he kind of got left at the start a bit. "It's very different for him here. He's still in quarantine, even after five weeks, and he's on his own the whole time so that's very different for him. He's trained as well as he can and we're happy enough. "The speed they went surprised me and that they kept galloping in the Pegasus and I think there were a few horses for the Nakayama Grand Jump that weren't even there and are more fancied so I think there's a good high standard (of jumping). "The fences are a lot like the French hedges, kind of a mound of earth and big bushes coming out, a bit like the cross-country at Cheltenham. "They're very big, but soft, and they seem to hurdle them very quickly over here which we weren't sued to the first day but he's schooled well since. "We've schooled him once and he came down a good bit as he was very big and deliberate in the Pegasus. He's jumping better and he's been through the stalls once, this morning here he went through the stalls as well. "He'd only been here 10 days and hadn't done a whole lot before the Pegasus and I would say he should strip a lot fitter for the race." Ruby Walsh is due to take the mount in a race which features Pegasus first and second Rikiai Kurofune and Smart Stage.
