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Nicky Henderson is keen to stress he is keeping a close eye on the weather ahead of Constitution Hill’s belated return in the rearranged Fighting Fifth at Sandown on Saturday.

The Grade 1 prize had been set to take place at Newcastle last week but was moved to Sandown's Tingle Creek card following Newcastle's abandonment due to the track being frozen.

While Sandown's card doesn't appear to be in any danger of not going ahead, the going on the hurdles course is already soft, heavy in places, something that is obviously a concern to Nicky Henderson for Constitution Hill.

The Lambourn-based handler said: "It's going to be horrible ground and it's going to make everything very tricky,"

"We'll just have to wait and see how it all pans out tomorrow and we'll be monitoring the situation closely.

"He's declared so obviously we want to run him, but it is close to the Christmas Hurdle, so it just might not be in his best interests.

"We all want to run; I just want to warn people that we will be assessing the conditions, and I cannot guarantee that everything will take part on Saturday."

Henderson looks set to unleash a star-studded line-up at Sandown over the weekend with Jonbon, who is already a short-price to land the feature Grade 1 Tingle Creek, and the promising Willmount both due to strut their stuff on the Esher track.

Henderson added: "The others are intended runners at this stage. Willmount is in the first race [Claremont Novices' Hurdle], and he's never run on heavy, so we need to find out if he handles this ground.

"As for Jonbon, we've always felt he was at his best on better ground, but he has won on soft and I'm pretty sure we've got stamina in our pocket."