NICKY HENDERSON'S Calling Brave (2.10) should be spot-on for Sunday's big race at Kempton, the £200,000 King George VI Chase over three miles, writes Colin Woods.

Mick FitzGerald's mount enjoyed the perfect preparation by finishing runner-up to the vastly improved Colonel Frank at Sandown earlier this month. With the King George so close, Henderson is bound to have left a bit of fitness-work on Calling Brave, who has been installed as the fourth favourite, trading at odds of 8-1.

And, with the benefit of that encouraging outing under his belt, all of the accumulated summer cobwebs will have been blown clean away from the classy eight-year-old breathing apparatus, thus allowing a clear passage of oxygen to penetrate deep into the depths of his powerful set of lungs.

Sadly it was legs rather than lungs which let Calling Brave down at this year's Cheltenham Festival, the gelding making an unfortunate and premature exit at the fifteenth of the 19 scheduled fences to be negotiated.

After being heavily backed in the lead up to the race, Henderson's charge was arguably travelling best of all until failing to get sufficient lift-off from the ground. Not surprisingly, the subsequent angry collision between horse and birch had the inevitable effect of jettisoning FitzGerald out of the saddle.

Such mishaps are part-and-parcel of jumps' racing, but luckily Calling Brave lived to fight another day, a stroke of good fortune which could pay dividends at the very highest level in perhaps the most popular steeple-chasing event of the entire season at the south London track.

Get more on racing at our Racing North site.