RACING: BOOKMAKERS MAY rate Sizing Europe as the one most likely to upset the established two-mile stars in next year's Champion Chase but his trainer, Henry De Bromhead, is keen to see if the Cheltenham hero can thrive over longer trips.

The Co Waterford trainer has pencilled in a two-and-three-quarter-mile conditions chase at Punchestown in mid-October for Sizing Europe’s first start of the new season and an impressive performance there would open up a whole list of options for last March’s Arkle winner.

“It is just to see how he gets on over a trip. He won his Beginners Chase over two and a half miles really impressively and we want to see if he is a three-mile horse,” De Bromhead said yesterday. “We can give it a go and if it doesn’t work out we can always go back to two miles.”

Kempton’s King George VI Chase was pinpointed by De Bromhead last season as a race he could consider for Sizing Europe who currently trades at 25 to 1 in some lists for the Christmas highlight.

However, the former Irish Champion Hurdle winner is rated a 7 to 1 third favourite by some major firms for the 2011 Champion Chase behind the current title holder, Big Zeb, and the former champion, Master Minded.

Sizing Europe wound up his 2009-10 campaign with a defeat in the two-mile championship at the Punchestown Festival but De Bromhead said: “We don’t regret running. We just regret not having another in the race to give a bit more pace. There was no gallop and over two miles that’s what he needs.

“He is back cantering now and seems to be in mighty form. He was brilliant last year and it was great he showed his true potential.”