Champion Hurdle 2011

[Anonymous]

well said fitzer you know what youre talking about with peddlers cross winning the champion hurdle. some people obviously dont know how to read form, this horse is the best mcain senior has ever seen? he says he will excell over red rum at greater distances and will win the gold cup and even the stayers hurdle, he may be the best horse we have seen run over timber. i still think he will be at the top of the hill clear. he is a battler and has clocked faster times than anything also hes unbeaten so hes bound to get knocked by punters that want to see him get beat. if i listened to some tips on here i would be skint.

[wilsonl]

Menorah beat Binocular fair and square in last season’s Supreme?

That was a trick and a half!

Yes AJ

In his defense though; Binocular did give Menorah nearly a couple of hours head start.

Lee

[bainsey2k10]

now i know you are smoking something!!!!

bobs worth fastest in the henderson yard? he’s so fast he’s going for the 3mil albert bartlett as opposed to the neptune!

i will be laying peddlers (not fast enough) and menorah (not good enough) until the cows come home!

binocular – but maybe by a little less distance than last year

[Anonymous]

looks like were both on something then, bobs worth will win the 3 mile race if he goes for that, he beats binocular on the gallops and has clocked one of the fastest times at kempton on bad ground. he would of been a big danger to peddlers , im glad hes not in the champion hurdle. fast horses still go for the 3mile races and by the way peddlers has better times than hendersons champion entry. ring henderson and ask him about bobs worth he wont mind you ringing. best of luck with your selection anyway bainsey.if you want to win some cash put them 2 ive said with big bucks, time for rupert , kempes, and twice over in the world cup race. thats a good lucky 63 ive already done them. go on the sporting life form page and you will see the times horses clock.

[Tuffers]

I’m always interested to hear other opinions but the one that keeps getting trotted out which I cannot get my head round is the idea that Peddlers Cross needs further. I assume this is based on his win at last year’s festival but Istabraq also won that race – did anyone think he needed further? Hardy Eustace also won the 2m5f race as a novice so there’s 5 Champion Hurdle victories from horses that won the same race as Peddlers Cross.

The real headscratcher though is this idea that Peddlers Cross will be outpaced. If anything, he’s been crying out for a faster pace. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a horse travel so strongly (to the extent of looking like he’s doing too much) and still find plenty at the business end.

The sort of horse that gets found out is the flat track cruiser who travels a million dollars and eases past slower horses. The searing pace of the Champion Hurdle together with the climb to the finish means that stamina not speed comes into play at the finish. Certainly you need speed early on to hold a position but I’ve lost count of the number of speed horses who’ve been found wanting up the Cheltenham hill.

[bainsey2k10]

watch last years neptune and he was certianly outpaced! lets just wait and see!

skyelaw – i wish you lcuky with your bets. if i was you, listen to ruby walsh at the paddy power preview night – "its not what time you do its what you beat" – never a truer word said

[Anonymous]

aye well times always count in racing in true run races if they have done it once they can do it again. peddlers has been winning on heavy ground and if you work the ground factor out and how slow the track is running you will see why i think he is outstanding, at kelso on bad ground it was over 2ml 2 furlongs and he clocked 3mins 44 seconds at the 2mile marker, thats with the ground factor time taken off – that is fast? my mate bomber who trains in newmarket had a horse called afaan that clocked 55 seconds for 5 furlongs at southwell, they clock 59 sec usually, i hope you do well also mate, we can only follow our own selections – we dont know what will happen really its all guess work when it all comes down to the nitty gritty. nice talking to you cheers.

[fitzer1987]

Yes I agree totally with you Skye. Peddlers will win the champion hurdle and the fact that he will improve when sent over longer and the bigger obstacles is just mind blowing. How many times will he win the gold cup in years to come? Im sure more than once! He is the next big thing in racing. I have heard all that D McCain has said about this horse and the fact he cannot believe his speed and class and so on. He is one trainner not to mince his words and he is totally honest about all his runners. I trust everything he says. He is always straight.

All you peddlers cross doubters will have plenty of humble pie to relieve your munchies this time next week as it is indeed all of you that are smoking some wacky backy if you are too blind to see the potential of this machine of a horse!! This year over the timber, and in years to come over fences!

[Zoso]

None of the rivals can be taken seriously and Binocular is the real deal, he will win of that I am absolutely certain.

HURRICANE FLY – Has looked good in IReland beating Solwhit on testing ground but is completely unproven out of Ireland.
Solwhits connections have decided that Solwhit is more of a stayer and had entered him in the Stayers Hurdle this year (non runner now), so basically Hurricane Fly has been beating a stayer in Ireland on testing ground and for some reason he is now a shortish price in the biggest test of his life.
His hurdling isnt great and he can jump to the right, the pace of this race will fully expose any chinks in his jumping and he can only dream about being as fluent as Binocular at his flights.
Most winners of the Champion Hurdle finished in the top 4 at the previous festival. Hurricane Fly has never even raced at Cheltenham race track. So we have no idea if he will for one thing handle the huge crowds and noise let alone handle the actual race track itself.
I believe this Hurricane Fly is vastly over hyped and will fail the test dismally.
Also he is sired by Monteju whos record of runners at Cheltenham is 0-44. Many scoff at that statistic and say it is meaningless, but experience tells me it is significant statistic and yet another nail in Hurricanes Flys already weak looking profile.

MENORAH – Won the supreme novice hurdle last year at the festival. Winners of the Supreme have an abysmal record when going for the Champion HUrdle the following year. You have to go back to 1971 to find the last Supreme winner who followed up in the Champion so that alone is a big negative to his chance.
The vast majority of CH winners have had at least 10 races over hurdles, the execptions were the flat horses who were switched to hurdling. Menorah has not had enough races and lacks the experience to win. Also 10 of the last 10 winners of the CH had had a race within 51 days of the CH – Menorah hasnt and that stat alone is enough to see him beaten.
Menorah looked good winning a handicap from 151 (i think) before beating a couple of hyped up novices (cue card and Silviano Conti), that form doesnt even come close to what is required to win this race.
Single figure odds on this horse is an insane price and it would be a major shock if he were to win as every single avenue leads to the conclusion that he wont win. And thats before you even consider the ground will be faster than he wants it on the day.

PEDDLERS CROSS – The plan for this horse was always to go chasing and its what he will be doing next season. McCain said at the start of the season that he wanted to race him against Binocular when they met at the start of the season to see if he was good enough to have a crack at the champion hurdle.
It is assumed Peddlers Cross was pretty close to full fitness for that race (as there would have been no point running him to find out if he was good enough if he wasnt fully or very close to full fitness). Binocular was apparently 50% fit and McCoy did not touch the horse. Inspite of this Binocular had Peddlers Cross off the bridle with over 2 flights to go, Peddlers Cross was hard ridden a long way out, yet a motionless McCoy on Binocular amazingly jumped alongside Peddlers Cross at the last, until the fitness and lack of jockey effort tried and PEddlers was allowed to skip away and win by 7 lengths. A fully fit Binocular (which is what we will be seeing on Tuesday) will absolutely eat Peddlers Cross alive. This horse stands no chance whatsoever of beating Binocular. He falls short on experience and has not had the required 10 starts over hurdles (and no flat experience) to be considered as a winner of this race. He is unbeaten over hurdles which is why his price is falsely short but the reality is he has just been well placed by McCain, in taking on an unfit Binocular and he is yet to race against a fit top class horse.

OSCAR WHISKEY – Hendersons other runner, yet another runner who comes up short on experience needed to win this race so can quickly be ruled out. WHen he won first time out this season Barry Gerraghty got off him and said this horse needs 3miles to show his best. Racing against the fastest hurdler alive in the Champion hurdle will see him dealt with and he is out of his depth here. Simply wont have the gears to live with Binocular.

DUNGUIB – Yet another so called contender who simply doesnt have the experience to win the race. His hurdling was diabolical last year, he has only raced once this year and did win and his hurdling looked better but it was only a 3 runner race and he is also in danger of bouncing on this 2nd run back from a year off in the big race. His hurdling will be tested to the limit in this field and i dont expect him to pass the test, even if his jumping does stand up he simply isnt good enough to live with Binocular.

MILLE CHIEF – Yet another horse who the statistics say cant win the Champion Hurdle. Lacks experience and on all known form will come up short. Alan King talks very highly of him and it is due to the trainers hype that he trades so short in the betting.
HE is a 5yo and 5yos winning a champion hurdle is extremely rare, A 5yo is the first horse i cross off n the champion hurdle as a possible winner. Not without question he could get a price but from a win perspective absolutely not.

OVERTURN – Not good enough and simply being used as a pacemaker.

KHYBER KIM – 2nd in last years Champion Hurdle but hard to see him reversing the form with Binocular as Bino looks even better this season. According to trends the only possible winner apart from Binocular but Binocular is quite simply the better horse has beaten him before and will beat him again.

Basically everysingle stat and trend suggests Binocular will win this race.

He also has the highest Official Rating, The completely unbiased Handicapper says Binocular is clearly the best horse in the race.

He is the defending champion, he is proven over CD and is proven at being able to produce his best under these conditions.

He has been targeted all season to peak for this race and will be at his best on the day.

AP McCoy recently said that he really cannot see what could beat Binocular in this race.

Everything is ideal for another Binocular win, the majority of the rivals quite simply lack the experience to win the race.
Hurricane Fly has major question s to answered and appears vastly over hyped and is a very unlikely winner.

The only shock in this race is -Why the hell isnt Binocular trading at odds on because he really shoudl be in this field. Currently 100/30 but that price will get smaller and smaller the closer we get and in reality he is going to go off at either 6/4 or 7/4.

I believe Binocular is the best hurdler I have ever seen in my lifetime and I doubt I will ever witness one as good as this again. When his career ends I believe he will have gone down in history as one of the all time great horses.

This race on Tuesday is a formality as far as Im concerned. The rivals are all racing for 2nd place only.

[Tuffers]

Now don’t sit on the fence, Zoso, tell us what you really think

I backed Binocular in the race last year so I’m certainly no knocker of him in general.

The one thing that I think isn’t disputed, though, is that Binocular has some sort of physical problem. I don’t know whether it is skeletal or muscular and it may be that Henderson doesn’t know either. Henderson does know however that the best way to tell whether anything is ailing Binocular is to see how he hurdles.

Last year all the vibes about Binocular suddenly turned very good. Henderson was telling everyone he had schooled brilliantly and was his old self again.

I may have missed it but I can’t find any comments from Henderson that are as bullish as last year. I’m not saying that between now and Tuesday he won’t do a final schooling session which has Henderson oozing confidence but I don’t see it so far.

I listened to the Timeform interview Henderson did and when the interviewer mentioned he was a difficult horse to get fit Henderson’s reply of "Well he’s certainly fit" left me feeling that although fitness wasn’t a concern something else might be. It was just a gut feeling but I’m not sure yet he thinks the horse is in the same form as he was last year. Betfair will probably answer that particular question over the next few days.

[shabby]

He is the defending champion, he is proven over CD and is proven at being able to produce his best under these conditions.

He has been targeted all season to peak for this race and will be at his best on the day.

He certainly is the defending champion …but will he be at his best on the day? Binocular fans talk as if he is always spot at the Festival but this is simply not the case.
Once he was simply 2nd best..behind Capt CB in the Supreme
Once he ran 7-10lbs below his best
Once when he was a deserving, impressive winner

So he has won a third of his visits to the Festival and disappointed on another third of his Festival runs. It seems to me a leap of faith is required that he will perform to his best at Cheltenham…that is a reasonable chance to take as his best may well be good enough but he is certainly not some kind of Festival winning machine that many would have you believe.

[Anonymous]

There’s no way on this earth Peddlers Cross was fully fit for the Fighting Fifth and there’s no way on this earth Binocular was only half-cooked.

Some of what’s written on here is laughable at times, it really is.

[Zoso]

He is the defending champion, he is proven over CD and is proven at being able to produce his best under these conditions.

He has been targeted all season to peak for this race and will be at his best on the day.

He certainly is the defending champion …but will he be at his best on the day? Binocular fans talk as if he is always spot at the Festival but this is simply not the case.
Once he was simply 2nd best..behind Capt CB in the Supreme
Once he ran 7-10lbs below his best
Once when he was a deserving, impressive winner

So he has won a third of his visits to the Festival and disappointed on another third of his Festival runs. It seems to me a leap of faith is required that he will perform to his best at Cheltenham…that is a reasonable chance to take as his best may well be good enough but he is certainly not some kind of Festival winning machine that many would have you believe.

Contrary to popular belief Binocular has ALWAYS been at his peak at the CHeletenham festival.

In the last 36 runnings of the Supreme Novice hurdle only one 4yo has managed to win the race.
When Binocular ran in the race he was an inexperienced 4yo, he had never even raced against his elders nor had he raced at a left handed track over hurdles, it was just his 3rd hurdles start. Take out the winner Captain Cee Bee and he basically spreadeagled the field.

That was an outstanding performance by a 4yo on his first run against elders, 1st run left handed, 1st run at Cheltenham. People try and crab him because he lost but it was an outstanding run.

When he came 3rd in the champion hurdle in 2009 this was also an outstanding run. 5yos hardly ever win the champion hurdle and on the rare occassions, Katchitt won it as a 5yo recently but he was super tough and had a lot of flat experience before winning it.
Even though the media hyped Binocular up that year, the fact remained he was a very unlikely winner of the race as a 5yo (I layed him that time simply because he was a 5yo). So to finish a very close up 3rd as a 5yo was in fact a great performance.

Last year he came of age and destroyed the field. It will be more of the same this year as he reaches a career peak on Tuesday, the only difference being I would say he is even better this time and the field is weaker than last year (despite what everyone says, the others are just hype horses).

There appears to be a myth around that Binocular is not consistent and you never know what you are going to get with him. I think this is absolute rubbish, the horse has won 9 of his 14 races.
He can surely be forgiven for coming 2nd as a 4yo in the Supreme and 3rd as a 5yo in the champion. He clearly wasnt fit and nor did McCoy ask him any question on his seasonal reappearance this year, it was just to get a run into him so surely you can forgive the horse that (as he actually had Peddlers Cross off the bridle a long way from home).
He clearly had some problems last year and when he was 5th at Newcastle and 3rd at Kempton there clearly was a problem, his jumping wasnt right and I believe he had some sort of muscular problem.

As far as I can see there have been no problems whatsoever since and basically this horse is super consistent and will be primed to peak on Tuesday. Many said that his run at Sandown in the 3 runner race was really poor, but from what I can see, he won it with absolute ease, and McCoy spent the last 3/4 of a furlong with his neck turned round looking behind him, The media made much too much of that performance and tried to make out that he struggled to win. He won with absolute total ease.

The other horses had better watch out on Tuesday, as one of the all time great hurdlers BINOCULAR is going to show them all up. I cannot believe that anybody could seriously want to be on anything else. Binocular really should be odds on here.

[Sea Pigeon]

4 day decs

1 11-311 Binocular38 7 11-10 Nicky Henderson47 A P McCoy
2 P46U02 Bygones Of Brid26 8 11-10 Karen McLintock100
3 11144 Clerk´s Choice94 5 11-10 Michael Banks Tom Molloy
4 1136-1 Dunguib24 8 11-10 Philip Fenton
5 31-111 Hurricane Fly51 7 11-10 W P Mullins
6 1121-4 Khyber Kim 9 11-10 N Twiston-Davies57 Paddy Brennan
7 212-11 Menorah94 6 11-10 Philip Hobbs47 Richard Johnson
8 1-5211 Mille Chief24 5 11-10 Alan King56 Robert Thornton
9 114-11 Oscar Whisky38 6 11-10 Nicky Henderson Barry Geraghty
10 1-2125 Overturn24 7 11-10 Donald McCain67 Graham Lee
11 111-11 Peddlers Cross26 6 11-10 Donald McCain Jason Maguire
12 132-1B Salden Licht25 7 11-10 Alan King56 Wayne Hutchinson
13 13-743 Thousand Stars51 7 11-10 W P Mullins45

[Scooter100]

Someone somewhere on here said that only Binocular or Hurricane Fly could win this because they were the only 2 fast enough…. and I think I agree with that.

I have been on Hurricane Fly since it’s aborted attempt a year ago…. Alot has been said and written about the form in Ireland and who he has beaten, but it has to be said that although Solwhit is a good horse, Hurricane fly hasn’t just been beating him this year, he has been beating him in a hack canter only racing from the final hurdle to the finish line, and he can only beat what is put in front of him.
It has also been said that being by Montjeu he may not get up the hill at Cheltenham, which IMO is rubbish, this horse has won a grade 1 at 2 and 1/2 miles on soft ground. The doubters will always find something to crab about him but I think with a strong pace and better ground he is going to be even better and that is a scary thought…… I hate leaving Menorah but to me this race is going to be decided by speed at the business end and both Binocular and Hurricane fly are the fastest and the most economical over their hurdles so should have it between them.

1. Hurricane Fly
2. Binocular
3. Menorah

It makes me laugh about all these so called pundits and radio pundits who predict that Hurricane Fly will not like Cheltenham…. I mean FFS, the Horse is yet to run there and could love it, he is flexible and can race up with the pace or off it, he stays and he handles either going….. that to me is the sign of a very good horse.

Ahhhh Glad to have gotten that off my chest lol

[Tuffers]

Just been watching some more video form for the major players (doesn’t video form make a difference to the dry words of the formbook?) The thing that struck me was how many of the principles don’t seem to display the fluent hurdling technique of a typical champion hurdler. Hurricane Fly visably slowed into a number of his hurdles in the Irish Champion and he certainly won’t get away with that in a truly run race. Menorah made a number of mistakes (including walking through one of the hurdles) in the Greatwood and Oscar Whisky just looks awkward over his hurdles. All in all those three are going to find their lack of technique a major handicap.

Based on that evidence the standout e/w bet has to be Khyber Kim. There’s no reason at all why he should finish any further behind Binocular than last year. 16/1 is freely available and although you can’t see him reversing form with Binocular he is as big a price to place as Binocular is to win.

My tricast would be Binocular Peddlers Cross and Khyber Kim.

[Getzippy]

If people think Binny should be 7/4, let alone odds on, they are the ones who needs their heads examined.

We’ll see. It’s easy for us all to come up for reasons why our tip should win. I wouldn’t take less than 4/1 E/W about Binny as I think he’ll end up coming third.

Menorah isn’t the perfect hurdler but he does it well enough and I think he’ll go "whooosh" when the button is pressed.

Zip

[Author]

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