Connections of Voy Por Ustedes are in optimistic form ahead of his bid for a second successive John Smith's Melling Chase success on Friday.
The eight-year-old was a hugely impressive 18 length winner of the Grade One last year, beating Master Minded with supreme ease, and he will attempt to bounce back from his disappointing run at Cheltenham.
Trained by Alan King, Voy Por Ustedes was considered to be one of the bankers of the week at the Festival but he never sparkled under Robert Thornton and beaten by Imperial Commander in the Ryanair Chase.
Reports suggest he is back to his best and connections are confident he can give a good account of himself around the Liverpool venue.
"I don't want to take anything from the winner, but I don't think Voy Por Ustedes ran his best race that day [Ryanair Chase]," explained Barry Simpson, racing manager to owner Sir Robert Ogden. "Despite the mistakes I don't think he was running to form.
"He made a couple of little odd mistakes early on and never looked like he was travelling all that well and then made a mistake at a pretty crucial time at the race.
"Alan reports that the horse is in great shape. He has come out of the race well and therefore we have to look at that as a very positive step. It looks a good race and we will be there doing our best."
Exotic Dancer is also entered in the Melling Chase but he is likely to swerve the contest in favour of a clash with Denman in the totesport Bowl.
"It is just a question of keeping our options open. I think the aim with Exotic Dancer is to go for the totesport Bowl," Simpson added.
"We have a couple of lengths to make up on Denman on Gold Cup form and he will obviously have improved a lot since then. We've probably got a lot to do - there's officially 9lb between the pair.
"We're going into this race very positive and we think he will run a pretty good race."
Connections decided against running the nine-year-old in the John Smith's Grand National but Simpson has hinted that he could line-up in the marathon in 2010.
"It is something we spent quite a long time talking to Sir Robert about and we made a decision that it was perhaps one year too early for him," he told At The Races. "We would like to give it a go and next year he will be ten and that will be a good time to challenge for it."