Butterfly heads top Irish entry

THERE are 44 entries in the £300,000 Smurfit Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham on March 11, including 12 trained in Ireland as well as two each from France and Germany.

Irish aspirants include Like-A-Butterfly, winner of last season’s Gerrard Wealth Management Supreme Novices’ Hurdle at the Festival, Adamant Approach, who was travelling ominously well when falling in the same race last year, and his stablemate Davenport Milenium, a good third in the Christmas Hurdle after a long lay off.

Vying for favouritism in the ante-post betting, for which the entries were revealed today, are the hugely-improved pair Intersky Falcon, winner of the Fighting Fifth and Pertemps Christmas Hurdles, and Rooster Booster, who landed the Victor Chandler Bula Hurdle at Cheltenham in December.