The 2008 flat season kicks off in new surroundings under Dundalk's floodlights tonight but there is a reassuringly familiar National Hunt ring to the action with the star hurdler Harchibald warming up for another Smurfit Kappa Champion Hurdle bid over a mile and a half on the all-weather.

With just 11 days to Cheltenham's Day One feature, Harchibald will be joined in the novel festival warm-up by the Champion Hurdle outsider Bobs Pride as well as another star jumper in Al Eile.

John Queally's multiple Grade One winner will most likely skip Cheltenham entirely and wait instead for a return to his old happy hunting ground at Liverpool so Al Eile fans can afford to be a little less anxious tonight.

With so little time to the festival, the same cannot be said for Harchibald and Bobs Pride, both of whom come here in pursuit of a better racing surface than has been available to them in the last couple of months.

Harchibald is a general 8 to 1 fourth favourite for the race in which he was such a controversial runner-up in 2005. He has already sampled the all-weather surface at Dundalk when a fine runner-up to Lake Pontchartrain late last year.

Nevertheless, his strong point has always been his quick jumping and an 88 flat rating means he faces a stiff task in a field of 15.

Bobs Pride hasn't shown as much over jumps but is an accomplished flat performer including when winning the Group Three Ballysax Stakes at Leopardstown as a three-year-old.

Dermot Weld made no secret of his Champion Hurdle ambitions when he won at Punchestown last April. Bobs Pride's starts since then have been less than brilliant but Weld is adamant that good ground is vital for Bobs Pride over jumps.

"He will have to run very well in order to stake a claim for the Champion Hurdle," admitted Weld who sends a strong team to Dundalk for the first session of the season.

Champion jockey Pat Smullen flies back from Dubai to team up with the Weld runners and he could also make a mark in the first race, the mile fillies maiden, with the Stravinsky runner, Fictional Account who has ground to make up on Catherine de Medici on Curragh running last October.

Lake Pontchartrain is back at the track for the mile-and-a-quarter handicap and the distance looks ideal for John Geoghegan's horse on the evidence of his previous defeat of Harchibald.

In other flat racing news, planning permission for the new Curragh grandstand has finally been granted, two years after the initial planning application. An Bord Pleanala has given the Turf Club the green light for the grandstand complex and the stewards are currently examining the conditions required for the building.

Discussions are also taking place regarding the overall cost of the Curragh facelift with the initial estimated costs of €100 million almost certain now to be exceeded. Racing will take place as planned at the Curragh this year with building work expected to start in September.