Early on Buckley lost a lot of very good horses (many being in the what might have been category) that it got to the stage that he decided to change his colours from the Black/White quarters and checked cap to the ones we know today (white, black cap) in the hopes that it would bring about a change in luck.
With his marquee horse hitting the deck in three of his last four races, I can understand him being ok in going this flat route to ensure that he actually gets to Cheltenham before having what could potentially be a last throw of the dice over hurdles.
The proposed run has unnecessarily been turned into a right circus as connections could have quite easily found a similar (and more low key) type of race to run him in without drumming up all the fanfare. On the RP website the racecard for the race has him as the 4-6 fav (along with Daddy Long Legs at 7-2 and Tripoli Flyer aat 13-2), which quite frankly are idiotic prices.
I do hope that he runs respectively, whether that is winning the race or finishing close up to where they can then move on to Cheltenham where we will likely find out what code his future lies under.