Meade Star Tipperary Bound

Leading Smurfit Champion Hurdle candidate Harchibald is set to return to action in Sunday´s John James McManus Memorial Hurdle at Tipperary. The six-year-old was a distant third in the Grade One event last season, when Solerina and Accordion Etoile fought out the finish on soft ground.

Trainer Noel Meade is keen to let last year´s Champion Hurdle runner-up have another crack at the two-mile race though, as long as conditions do not turn against him.

'I think he will run, as long as the ground doesn´t change to soft or soft to heavy,' he told At The Races. 'Good or good to yielding ground and he will run.

'He worked yesterday and I was very pleased with him. He obviously wouldn´t be 100 per cent wound up but he started in this race last year and it looks like a good place to start again.'

Sunday´s race has attracted some high-class entries including the first two home last year, and Meade believes they will be the ones to beat.

'Accordion Etoile and Solerina are the obvious two. Solerina won this race last year and if the ground gets soft she´ll probably take all the beating again,' he added.

Harchibald will be having his first start since finishing a head second to Brave Inca at the Punchestown Festival in April.

Meade´s charge had previously run Hardy Eustace to a neck at Cheltenham and the handler thinks he may not have been at his best on his last run.

'After the Champion Hurdle he was between four and six kilos lighter than he had been all season and it´s quite possible he wasn´t at his best,' Meade added.

'It wasn´t that far away from his run in the Champion Hurdle, though, when the winner was only a neck behind us.'

? PA Sport