Noel Chance said yesterday that Looks Like Trouble was "as fit as we can get him" ahead of the Cheltenham Gold Cup winner's reappearance at Down Royal on Saturday.

Looks Like Trouble was ferried to Northern Ireland yesterday morning for the rescheduled James Nicholson Wine Merchant Champion Chase, in which he will clash with the Gold Cup runner-up Florida Pearl.

Chance said: "The horse is in good shape. He's as fit as we can get him, and it's fingers crossed."

The £110,000 contest, which will be shown live on Channel 4, had been postponed from last week. Chance admitted he had found that unsettling.

He said: "You put a race back by a week and you think it's no big deal. But it is, because we've been getting this horse ready since mid-July to run in this race and suddenly the race doesn't happen.

"Then you have to work him again twice, school him, and you're opening up the risk of injury all the time. It might not have unnerved the horse, but it unnerved me."

Flagship Uberalles, who joined Chance from Paul Nicholls over the summer, puts his stamina on trial for the King George when he makes his reappearance in the Grade One John Durkan Memorial Punchestown Chase on December 10th over two and half miles.

Chance said "I'm going to run him in the John Durkan just to put to bed, once and for all, whether he stays or doesn't stay. If he sluices in, or runs as though he stays well, perhaps he might run at Kempton. It will give us a reasonable guide."