Trainer Jeremy Scott, buoyed by the victory of Decimus at Wincanton on Sunday, gave an upbeat bulletin on the health of his string.

In the week before the Cheltenham Festival, Scott was preparing to saddle leading contenders in both the Supreme Novices and Champion Bumper only for misfortune to rule both Melodic Rendezvous and Empiracle out of their respective targets.

However, Scott has revealed that the former could have recovered in time to take his chance at Aintree.

"We scoped a lot of the horses last week and they all scoped a lot better than they did two weeks ago, so I'm hopeful that we are over the worst of it," he said.

"He [MR] just didn't scope right before Cheltenham. We knew we had a problem creeping around and although we tried to isolate the horses against it, it was too late. I'm very hopeful that we will get to Aintree with him but if we don't get there, I'm very, very confident that we will get to Punchestown.

"I had the bad luck before Cheltenham, but perhaps it will work in our favour and some of the other trainers might not have their horses so well for Aintree - you just don't know," he added.

Melodic Rendezvous won't be joined in Liverpool by Empiracle, however, but Scott retains high hopes for his son of Kris Kin.

"With Empiracle it was more than a cough and a sniffle and he had developed an infection which went right up from the hoof up to the joint, which he needed a small operation for.

"We had been keeping it under control with anti-biotics but we realised it was getting more serious and we had to take action. He is probably going to miss the rest of the season now but should be back next season."

The Somerset based handler feels, however, that that could turn out to be a blessing in disguise, commenting: "The Cheltenham bumper takes a lot out of horses and in the long term it might prove to be a blessing that we didn't run - I want him to be running in the big races in two or three years' time."