Disappointing from Hendo as we know from previous comments from him that schooling at home has/had been fine going into the races where he has subsequently fallen, so clearly jumping well at home over the old style hurdles has little correlation to jumping (or not jumping) the white hurdles in an actual race, so a complete waste of time continuing down that route.
If they really wanted a better idea, then Hendo really should try to get as close to replicating what he would face at Cheltenham as possible and that would mean bringing in a row of the white hurdles to school him over and see what happens then……somehow I very much doubt that will be happening.
Quite frankly, if only two horses turned up for the Champion Hurdle and CH was one of them, at this point, I would still have grave doubts about his ability to jump a clean round. Friday showed that the engine is still there but that is wholly irrelevant if the horse can’t jump and pretty much all recent evidence tells us he can’t.
The lengths they are going to, to try and convince themselves that he should go back to hurdling really should be a massive red flag for not doing it and after Friday, I really struggle to see why this isn’t an easy no brainer decision to simply do what is best for the horse and continue the remainder of his career on the flat.