Brigante to face Big Buck's Coral Cup winner Carlito Brigante heads the Irish challenge for the BGC Partners Liverpool Hurdle at Aintree on Thursday, bidding to prevent Big Buck’s winning the race for the third consecutive time. Carlito Brigante was an effortless winner of the Coral Cup at Cheltenham and while the gelding has been raised 18lbs for that win, the Gordon Elliott trained gelding is currently rated 14lbs below Big Buck’s. The step up in class is certainly not lost on Elliott who reported “Carlito Brigante is 100% and while we won’t want much more rain, we’ll find out how good he is against the two big guns (Big Buck’s and Grand Cru).” “Realistically though, he seems to be running for a bit of prizemoney.” Triple World Hurdle winner Big Buck’s is bidding to complete a hat-trick of wins in tomorrow’s race (and indeed win at the Festival for the fourth consecutive year) and currently heads the market as the 4/7 favourite. The Paul Nicholls trained gelding is unbeaten in his last 11 starts. The Sabrina Harty trained Won In The Dark (Andrew Lynch to ride) is the only other Irish runner in the 11 runner race. Tom Weekes
