World Back In Motion

Cheltenham Festival runner-up Material World will make her return from a 310-day absence at Haydock on Saturday ? providing the ground is not riding too heavy.

Suzy Smith's flagbearer has been out of action since finding only Oscar Park too strong in the Pertemps Final last March.

'There's every chance she's going to run. The only thing that might put us off is heavy ground, in which case she'd go to Cheltenham the following weekend,' said Smith.

'She's in good form but she had a stress fracture last term and was back in much later this year as a result.

'That has all healed well and the bone scans are fine, so I'd like to think she will improve again this year now everything is sorted.

'She's had quite a while off but she's pretty fit and would go in soft ground. She just hates it heavy and I think she might have picked up the injury when running on it before Cheltenham last year.'

Smith anticipates handing her stable star entries in two races at the Festival, with a crack at the Ladbrokes World Hurdle currently the favoured option.

'We'll enter her in the new David Nicholson race and in the World Hurdle, and my personal view is that unless the mares race looks very weak, we'd probably be better off in the three-miler.

'We'd have a mares allowance and if she improves again this year it would put us in there with some of them.

'She wouldn't beat Inglis Drever off level weights but she'd have the allowance and I have a feeling she is going to improve again.

'She ran her best ever race at Cheltenham and to have run so well with a stress fracture really shows how good she is.'

(C) PA Sport