He has been dismissed almost out of hand by many, but Mighty Man is no back number for tomorrow’s Ladbrokes World Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival, writes  StarSport tipster Bob Downing.

It will be a training achievement to rank with the best if Shropshire’s Henry Daly has got Mighty Man back into some kind of form after a two-year lay-off.

But the Ludlow handler has done it before with Palarshan – who had not raced for over 700 days when he was second in the Racing Post Plate in 2007 – and the vibes coming out of Downton Hall have been very positive of late.

And there is certainly every reason to believe that Mighty Man can run into a place tomorrow.

The nine-year-old has not been seen on a racecourse in competitive action since his career-threatening injury at Punchestown on April 26, 2007, when he was well fancied to follow up a victory at Aintree after finishing second to Inglis Drever in this same race at Cheltenham.

It was only a couple of months ago that the horse returned to the yard – and at that stage Daly was saying that his real target would be Aintree again and that the World Hurdle was a “stepping stone”.

But that stepping stone could well become a mighty leap tomorrow.

Daly was pleased with his racecourse gallop at Bangor recently and the same went for Richard Johnson, who rode that work.

And his jockey tomorrow, Sam Thomas, who has been schooling Mighty Man, has been delighted with the way he is moving.

There is little doubt that a Mighty Man who had not suffered his tendon injury would have been a warm order – and there is no reason to believe that at 33-1 he could run into the money.

The favourite is Kassbah Bliss, given the evidence of his recent win at Haydock and his excellent fourth in the Prix du Cadran at Longchamp on Arc day.

But the Champion Hurdle-winning combination of Nicky Henderson and Barry Geraghty could add another major prize with Punchestowns.

Punchestowns has shown a massive amount of improvement this season and it all began when he turned a competitive looking handicap into a procession despite having to carry top weight.

He put up the same type of performance when he was upped in distance and class to take the Long Walk Hurdle at Ascot, but conceding 8lb to Big Bucks in the Cleeve Hurdle was too much on heavy ground.