STORM Dennis may well have caused havoc over the past few days but there’s no denying spring is not too far away as the lighter mornings and nights bear out.

And as we head into March the excitement builds in the jumps racing world with Cheltenham taking place from March 10-14, followed by Aintree at the beginning of April and then the Coral Scottish Grand National Festival on April 17 and 18.

Once Cheltenham is out of the way we should have a clearer picture of what horses plan to head to Ayr for Scotland’s richest meeting but I think its fair to see we won’t be disappointed by either the quality of quantity of runners.

The Paul Nicholls yard always send lots of horses to the meeting and I think I saw one running on Saturday that could well line up in the Coral Scottish Grand National on April 18. Yala Enki caught the eye when finishing third in the Unibet Grand National Trail at Haydock. This ten year-old was formerly trained by Venetia Williams and holds an entry in the Grand National but I think he will be more suited by the Ayr race and he could feature heavily if lining up.

Another horse who ran at Haydock who I think will also plump for Ayr rather than Aintree is Vintage Clouds who finished sixth on our race last year behind Takingrisks and was third to Joe Farrell 12 months earlier.

The Sue Smith horse still has a big race in him and although noises have been made about Aintree I again think that he will return to Ayr for a crack at the £215,000 contest. I will keep you posted over the coming weeks once I get a better idea of who is likely to run and one other horse I must mention at this stage is the Sandy Thomson trained Geronimo who pulled up at Haydock on Saturday.

That run was just too bad to be true and he has two Ayr wins to his credit and is a chaser that is not fully exposed. If he has another run in the next few weeks and puts Saturday’s flop behind him he should line up in the Scottish National with a decent chance.

I’m also looking out for possible runners in the coral Scottish Champion Hurdle and as I’ve already mentioned Nicky Richards will almost certainly run Ribble Valley in this. Many of the horses that might be being considered for this race by their trainers will be waiting for the better ground that should be around in the spring but I am certain that there will be a couple of horses from the Nicky Henderson stable who will be trained with the race ion mind particularly as Nicky’s Verdana Blue won Scotland’s richest hurdle race so emphatically last year.