Trainer Steve Gollings has decided not to give Royal Shakespeare a warm-up run but to send him directly to the Elite Hurdle at Wicanton. The colt was expected to run in a mile-and-a-half handicap at Catterick.

“The ground's too bad up there for him. He's not a soft-ground horse and to pull him apart in his first race is not what we want to do,” Gollings explained. “Had it been decent ground we would have taken him for a spin, but it's not necessary.”

Royal Shakespeare, who won last year’s Order of Merit, has not raced since last April when he finished sixth in the Scottish Champion Hurdle at Ayr. “He's in great form and I couldn't be more happy with him. What he deserves more than anything is decent ground,” Gollings said.