I was delighted with Traffic Fluide’s seasonal reappearance at Aintree last month and he has come out of that race really well.

The plan at this stage is now to step him up in trip and head to the Betfair Chase at Haydock a week on Saturday.

He should get his ideal conditions with some cut in the ground and there are only 11 of them left in at this stage.

I’ve been really happy with him at home and he has been working very well.

I’m not worried about the trip for him, as I think it’s what he needs now, and Haydock seems the obvious place to go with him.

You have to respect the likes of Sizing John and Bristol De Mai, but Traffic Fluide is a very talented horse who we haven’t seen the best of yet.

Sire De Grugy to head back to Ascot

I mentioned a few weeks ago how pleased I was with Sire De Grugy’s comeback effort over hurdles at Ffos Las in the Welsh Champion Hurdle last month.

He got beaten by horses he had no right to beat over hurdles that day, but finished nicely clear of the rest.

The plan with him is to go back to Ascot, also on Saturday week, and try and win that same valuable handicap he won last year.

There is normally plenty of cut in the ground which he needs and he goes so well at the track.

He has won twice there now and finished second on his only other start, so it’s the obvious race for him.

We’ll get Ascot out of the way first before making any other long-term plans with him.

Ar Mad will head to Sandown for the Tingle Creek

On face value you have to say that Ar Mad was a little disappointing on his reappearance at Exeter last week in the Haldon Gold Cup.

He never really travelled like I know he can and weakened out of things pretty quickly.

We brought him home and he scoped badly the next day so I now know that he wasn’t right.

I’m also sure that we disappointed him a bit by riding him with restraint and that’s another reason he didn’t perform.

Our plan now is to freshen him up for the Tingle Creek at Sandown in just under a month.

He ran a cracker in the race 12 months ago to finish fourth to Un De Sceaux and I’m hopefully he can improve on that this time with a run under his belt already this season.