CHIPPING Norton trainer Charlie Longsdon believes Pendra’s heartbreaking defeat at the Cheltenham Festival will prove a great trial for next month’s Randox Health Grand National.

Running for the first time since finishing unplaced in last year’s Grand National, the nine-year-old looked set to break Longsdon’s duck at the Festival when he jumped the last fence three lengths clear under Derek O’Connor in the Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Challenge Cup Amateur Riders’ Handicap Chase.

But the 16-1 shot drifted right under top weight on the climb to the line, and 40-1 outsider Domesday Book rallied under Gina Andrews to snatch the spoils by three-quarters of a length.

Now the chestnut son of Old Vic is set to return to Merseyside on April 8 for the Aintree spectacular, for which he is a best-priced 66-1 chance.

Longsdon said: “I am sure the run will prove to be a great trial for the Grand National next month.

“Last year he proved he could jump round the course on ground that went too soft for him overnight.

“It meant he did not see out the four miles and two furlongs, and he came home in 13th place. If the ground is a little drier this year, he really could have a little each-way squeak.”

Longsdon admitted to running the full gamut of emotions during the thrilling three-and-a-quarter-mile contest at Cheltenham, revealing that he had brought his stable stalwart back to health after he had been seriously ill returning from Ireland in September.

Longsdon added: “Pendra ran the race of his life at Cheltenham.

“For a horse that had been off for almost a year and then back in October spent the whole month at the vets with pneumonia it was an unbelievable performance.”

“It was a struggle to get him to Cheltenham in time, and then to get run out of it in the shadow of the post was gutting, but you can’t be anything but very proud of the horse.

“Derek O’Connor gave him a fantastic ride, and just blamed the omission of the third last for his defeat. It would have given him the chance to get a breather and that would have probably seen him up the hill.

“Pendra has been a huge part of Hull Farm for the past five years and to run that race off 11st 12lbs was a great achievement.”