Operation today for Danoli

Tom Foley, the trainer of Danoli, was yesterday hopeful that the flagbearer for his small Co Carlow stable will be sidelined for no more than "six to eight months" by the injury he sustained at Aintree on Saturday.

There had been fears that Danoli's career would be ended by the leg injury he picked up in winning the Aintree Hurdle for the second successive year, but for the first time on unsuitably fast ground.

However, Foley said: "I am confident Danoli will race again. He goes for an operation in Liverpool tomorrow on a fractured fetlock. He'll be off for six to eight months so we should be back at Cheltenham next year. We felt much better when we heard that he hadn't done a tendon - if he had he wouldn't have come back."

Danoli, third in the Champion Hurdle, beat Boro Eight in the £45,000 Aintree event to confirm the position of horse and trainer as Irish folk heroes.