Trainer Hughie Morrison is going into Tuesday's Unibet Champion Hurdle with his eyes wide open but is hoping a new training schedule will pay dividends with Not So Sleepy.
A 125/1 outsider for the Champion Hurdle, Morrison's charge ran a huge race to finish fifth at Cheltenham.
The enigma that is Not So Sleepy can run free but delivered in the Fighting Fifth at Newcastle in November where he dead-heated with Nicky Henderson's Epatante. He then showed his inconsistency at the Christmas Hurdle at Kempton, finishing last of five behind Nicky Henderson's mare.
Morrison feels the Lady Blythe-owned gelding more than deserves a place in the lineup with odds-on favourite Honeysuckle who bids to retain her title and take her unbeaten run to 15.
He said: "He ran a big race last year.
"The way he schooled on Wednesday, he is nothing short on enthusiasm. It is a question of whether he arrives at the start and we might find that he says, 'it is a bit quick for me today, guys' and do what he did a couple of years ago (when unseating Paddy Brennan).
"He deserves to be in the field on his Fighting Fifth run. But what else do we do with him? We have got to have a go.
"The owners are very sporting. They asked, 'can we go somewhere else?', but I say to them, 'where would you go?'.
"Last summer, rather than turning him away - sometimes with these older horses, I think if you turn them away it is very difficult to get them going again - we just kept him ticking over and he got much more amenable about taking his rider around the Downs and now he is very happy.
"Since the autumn, we have totally changed his training regime. He has been doing most of his work on the Fibresand gallop rather than the woodchip and when he goes on the grass, he would never see a faster horse going past.
"Having been a mile and a half round there last Friday, he passed them full of running.
"They don't go slowly in the Champion Hurdle and he likes a good gallop."
Morrison is perhaps better known for his success on the Flat with the likes of champion sprinters Sakhee's Secret and Pastoral Pursuits, and stayers such as Alcazar, Marmelo and Nearly Caught but takes a select team to take to the Festival.
The bookmakers rate Morrison's Our Jester as one of the best of the British horses in the Weatherbys Champion Bumper.
The six-year-old has won both his bumpers this term, including the valuable Winter Million bumper at Lingfield in January.
"Our Jester is like his mother Cill Rialaig and his sister Urban Artist," said Morrison. "Both were immature horses. We started them off in bumpers so they were able to progress and become black type horses on the Flat, as well as his mother winning a Listed bumper.
"He was obviously very weak last year as a five-year-old. He is a very tall horse - he is 17 hands - and basically, he is a great, big, tall Flat horse.
"The bumper system suits him well. He has done nothing wrong and he won a Lingfield bumper that was a nice prize.
"You wouldn't fancy him running downhill on an all-weather surface like he did at Lingfield, and he proved he handled that."
