The 1996 Cheltenham Gold Cup winner, Imperial Call, and the current Gold Cup favourite, Dorans Pride, are set for a titanic early-season clash at Clonmel on Thursday week.

Both horses will be entered for the two and a half mile £20,000 Morris Oil Chase and are set to run if there is some cut in the ground.

Dorans Pride missed a recent engagement when Limerick was postponed but Michael Hourigan said yesterday: "He will run at Clonmel unless the ground is firm and Richard Dunwoody will ride."

Imperial Call hasn't run since being pulled up in last March's Gold Cup, but he won the Morris Oil race in 1995 and trainer Fergie Sutherland said: "If there is cut in the ground he will run at Clonmel. He has been in since July and is very well."