CHARACTER BUILDING will run in the William Hill Chase on the first day of the Cheltenham Festival before bidding for John Smith’s Grand National glory.

John Quinn’s 10-year-old won the Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Chase at last year’s Festival under Jamie Codd. On the back of that he went into last year’s Aintree showpiece as one of the leading candidates. But was forced to miss the race when suffering a late setback in the week leading up to Aintree. He has his first start of this season when pleasing connections in a hurdles contest at Doncaster.

Character Building has a decent weight of 10st11lb in the National and is currently a best-priced 33-1 with Ladbrokes, William Hill, bet365 and Victor Chandler.

North Yorkshire trainer Quinn said: “Having recently being allotted a weight of 10st11lb in the showpiece race, we can now confirm that his target is the William Hill Chase at the Cheltenham Festival en route to a crack at the big race in April. Hopefully he can provide the stable and his owners with back-to-back victories at the Festival.”

One horse not heading to Cheltenham is Alan King’s Mille Chief, who has been ruled out of the JCB Triumph Hurdle.

King’s four-year-old failed to show enough improvement from the setback which forced him to miss Kempton on Saturday. He could, though, head to Aintree.

The French import was ante-post favourite with many firms before being found to be lame at the weekend. And King said: “Mille Chief is getting better and we can see improvement, but we have basically run out of time to make the Triumph.

“You can’t go half-cocked to Cheltenham – even 90% is not good enough. He’ll miss Cheltenham and we’ll monitor the situation, but I’d be optimistic we’ll make Liverpool.”

TODAY’S NAP: Our Jim (4.50pm Bangor)