Johnson looking forward to Festival

Richard Johnson is eagerly awaiting the start of next week`s Cheltenham Festival and he believes he has an ideal chance to take two of the big races.

Johnson will ride 4-1 favourite Looks Like Trouble in the Tote Cheltenham Gold Cup and he also has the ride on Flagship Uberalles, who is one of the leading fancies for the Queen Mother Champion Chase.

The rider, who has spent three months on the sidelines with a broken leg this season, is looking forward to a successful meeting.

He told the Racing Channel today: 'I`m very excited. I`ve hopefully got a great book of rides throughout the whole meeting and obviously Flagship Uberalles and Looks Like Trouble are the main two.'

Looks Like Trouble, who is trained by Noel Chance, has completed a successful recovery from leg problems to return to Cheltenham this year and Johnson is impressed with the well-being of the horse.

He added: 'Looks Like Trouble, I`ve been very impressed with him how he`s felt considering he`s had an injury and everything and I was happy with him when he ran with Seamus and I think Noel`s very pleased with him.

'I rode him at Kempton the other day in a piece of work after the Racing Post Chase and he felt like he was in top order in himself which I think is the main thing. We know he`s good enough, he`s done it before, so touch wood, he gets there in one piece and he`s got a great chance.'

Although Johnson believes his mount will have a good chance of winning the blue riband for the second time, he knows the pair face no easy task.

'Every other runner in the race and the fences are a danger. But I think Behrajan is the one that`s probably going to worry me the most being one of Henry Daly`s and a horse I`ve ridden a lot.

'He`s a horse that will relish the conditions and I think that every horse in the Gold Cup needs to stay, so he`s probably one of the main dangers.'

There has been much speculation about how the ground will turn up when the meeting finally starts on Tuesday, but Johnson believes the state of the ground will provide few problems for his mount.

'I don`t think it bother him too much, he doesn`t want the extremes of either I think. He`s won on most conditions and I think it`s hard to know with Cheltenham - it dries very quickly.

'If they have a lot of rain on Sunday and Monday it could be soft but saying that it could still dry out by the Thursday.'