Paul Nicholls has Silviniaco Conti on track for Haydock Betfair Chase

Tommy Silver from Paul Nicholls’ yard exercises in the lanes around the trainer’s Manor Farm stables in Ditcheat. Photograph: David Davies/PA

The Betfair Chase at Haydock Park on Saturday was the main reason why Silviniaco Conti paraded for the media at Paul Nicholls’s yard on Monday morning, but when the beaten favourite in last season’s Gold Cup is the topic for discussion, the Cheltenham Question is never far away. Nicholls suggested in April that Silviniaco Conti had run his last race at Cheltenham. “Never say never” was as close as he got to changing his mind on Monday

It is possible there will be a million reasons for Nicholls to think again in seven weeks’ time. This year’s Betfair Chase, for which Silviniaco Conti is the 11-10 favourite, will mark the revival of a 1m bonus, offered to a horse that can win the Betfair Chase, the King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day and then the Gold Cup in March. Nicholls won a similar bonus with Kauto Star in 2007, while Silviniaco Conti took the first two legs of what has been christened the “Chase Triple Crown” last season. The third, though, has always been beyond him.

“If he did happen to win the Betfair and King George, and it’s all a big if this year, you’d have to consider the bonus because it’s not there very often,” Nicholls said. “You never say never and the owners would be very tempted to give it a go.

“I would say that to suit him, [the Gold Cup] would have to be very testing to slow the others down a bit but he might prove to us that he’s in the form of his life this year. But up to now, he’s been very unlucky at Cheltenham and last year just proved to us that it wasn’t ideal. Two years ago he was travelling like the winner when he came down at the third-last so it’s not that he can’t necessarily act there, but he does look on his profile as if flat tracks suit him better.”

Deep ground is also ideal for Silviniaco Conti and he seems likely to get his ideal going at Haydock for the second year running this weekend. “I’m sure we’ll be on and I’m sure it will be heavy,” Kirkland Tellwright, Haydock’s clerk of the course, said here.

“The forecast is a shocker, with probably 40mm of rain before Saturday. It’s going to rain right up until the last minute and those that like heavy will have their chance to wade through it.”

Twelve months ago, Silviniaco Conti kept finding more in the mud as he stayed on dourly to beat Menorah. This time around, it is another familiar opponent in Colin Tizzard’s Cue Card, fourth last year and the winner in 2013, who is the 3-1 second-favourite behind the market leader. Dynaste and Ballynagour, stablemates at the David Pipe yard, are 8-1 and 10-1 respectively, and it is 20-1 bar the four.

“He ran very well the other day at Kempton [when second in a handicap hurdle] in light of the situation we were in,” Nicholls said.

“There was no way he was going to win with 11st 12lb. He’s not missed a beat since he ran there and obviously his stamina is going to be very important this weekend, a flat track and soft ground are absolutely made for him. Really testing ground is probably ideal for him, as all he does is gallop and jump.”

Victory for Silviniaco Conti would put the nine-year-old on course for the King George on Boxing Day at Kempton, a race he has won for the last two seasons but for which he is currently only rated the 6-1 third-favourite by bookmakers, behind the outstanding Irish chasing prospects, Vautour and Don Cossack.

“The Betfair on Saturday is going to be an interesting stepping stone,” Nicholls said, “and the King George could be one of the toughest King Georges for a long, long time if they all turn up. He’ll be doing well to win three but you never know.”

Nicholls’s success with Old Guard in Sunday’s Greatwood Hurdle, the most valuable race on the final day of the Open meeting at Cheltenham, took him back to the top of the trainers’ championship in the early stages of a season that could bring his 10th title.

“Whether it’s Saturday, Friday or Sunday, we want to win those big races,” Nicholls said. “The Betfair Chase is the first really big chase of the season and it would be nice to get it on board. We’ve managed to get to the top of the trainers’ table already, we’re in the driving seat again and we’ve just got to stay there, so we’ve got to keep picking up these prizes.”

The feature event on Saturday week will be the Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbury, where Coneygree, the Gold Cup winner, will attempt to defy top weight in the manner of Denman, a former star of the Nicholls yard, in 2008. Nicholls expects to saddle the second-favourite Saphir Du Rheu, an impressive winner at Carlisle earlier this month.

“Coneygree was awesome [at Sandown] the other day and he’s won a Gold Cup so you don’t need to say any more, he’s going to be hard to beat,” Nicholls said. “We get a handy 9lb off him, if we’re ever going to beat him, that’s going to be handy. But it’s going to be an interesting race.”

Dodging Bullets, the Queen Mother Champion Chase winner, is unlikely to contribute to Nicholls’s prize money total this side of Christmas, however. The seven-year-old year suffered a splint on his off foreleg in mid-October and is likely to miss the Tingle Creek Chase in early December and a possible meeting with Sprinter Sacre, the former Champion Chase winner who returned to winning form at Cheltenham on Sunday.

“Dodging is fine but he probably won’t make the Tingle Creek,” Nicholls said. “He’s doing loads of walking and we’ve just got to get the soreness out of the splint. So we might be looking to get him right for after Christmas, and it might be a good thing after [Sprinter Sacre’s performance] yesterday to keep him nice and fresh.

“He would have had a tough race giving 10lb to Sprinter Sacre and the spring will be different. It’s a minor thing, a nuisance more than anything, but there just won’t be enough time to get him ready for the Tingle Creek.

“At the weights, you’d have wanted to see him [Sprinter Sacre] do that [at Cheltenham], but he was very good yesterday. Let’s hope he carries that forward, and we’ll just have Vibrato Valtat against him next time in the Tingle Creek.”