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I thought it might be a good idea to start a new thread and let the one that has been all about his NH career (until this month) be laid to rest. If the powers that be, or indeed the majority think otherwise, then just delete it.
So where next – well the John Porter seems the obvious choice, given the proximity to the stable and it’s ability to cope with a big crowd. Rather surprisingly, there has been a 9-y-old winner of the race, just twenty years ago. That was Mubtaker, trained by Tregoning and it came at the end of a long and distinguished flat career.
You have to go back a bit further to find a winner that had already run over hurdles. That was Linpac West, a 25/1 scorer in 1993 for Mr Elsey and one F Dettori. In one of those rather odd coincidences that racing tends to throw up, Linpac West had only run once over hurdles, at Wetherby, three years before his John Porter win, and he fell in that race.
There is one possible opening that I suspect will not be noticed by Henderson. That’s a 12F Novice Stakes for 4yo+ at Kempton on Wed March 25th. A run in that would result in an official handicap mark, which in turn would widen the range of options for future races.
Alan’s right with this new thread (I hope it lasts for a while) and also about his next race. We have to get down to earth and have the horse confirm it’s Flat ability. Another Novice Stakes looks the right thing to go for. After that, we can still keep dreaming and arguing about any Group races or Handicaps they should go for.
I suppose one of the questions is how many appearances will he make on the flat if all goes to plan?
If he is sparingly seen again can they waste another run in a novice event?
I hope they at least make the entry for the John Porter and take a look. My knowledge of flat racing is fairly limited so which 13 furlong horses are likely to rock up there?
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Based on his past history, probably no more than four or five runs. The nearest equivalent to CH was Caracciola, bought off the flat from Germany, he started out over hurdles for Henderson as a 5-y-old.For the next four years he was kept to just NH races, becoming a regular in the run of high value 2M handicap hurdles at Newbury, Cheltenham, Ayr and Haydock in the period from Feb – May. Then when he was a 10-y-old, after running in most of those races, he was sent flat racing. That year he finished second in the Ascot Stakes and second in the Cesarewitch.
The key difference was that he’d never fallen and he continued to mix flat and hurdling. On the flat he won the Cesarewitch as an 11-y-old and the Queen Alexandra as a 12-y-old. The last race of his career was the Goodwood Cup as a 13-y-old! So we might see CH for a few years yet.
Henderson also won the Cesarewitch with two other older horses, Landing Light and Buzz, both primarily hurdlers. And all three of those Ces winners ran almost always at 2M over hurdles, but handled the longer trip on the flat.
Assuming a mark that hasn’t already been elevated wildly above the 120 which Trueshan defied in the same race not so long ago, and given effectiveness on Tapeta is clearly not in doubt, taking in the Northumberland Plate with Constitution Hill makes a degree of appeal.
It would render irrelevant those concerns not unjustifiably already raised as regards campaigning him on potentially quick summer ground. Indeed, isn’t a dry, clement summer likelier to make the Tapeta ride standard to slow, such are the way these things work?
It was certainly the target we were gravitating towards when discussing the matter in the Duncombe Park ptp commentary box at the weekend. There may well be plenty of easy/soft-ground Group races on the continent that would take little winning, but these will pass by unnoticed by a trainer who largely eschews mainland European targets. Taking the same Compiegne Listed hurdle twice, albeit eight years apart, and only because of some historical familial links to the race, does not make Nicky Henderson a student of the European race programme.
You might rightly theorise that a Plate shouldn’t rate the sum total of connections’ ambitions. I’m admittedly not wholly unsympathetic to that argument. At the same time, however, I’m sure they’ll have their own quality threshold below which they wouldn’t want Constitution Hill to dip, either at the risk of humiliating him or (going back to the social contract point) leaving them open to criticism if he picked up a terminal injury in pursuit of a smallish purse.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
Perhaps somebody at the yard read my opening post – CH has just been entered for the 12F 4yo+ novice stakes at Kempton next Wednesday evening. It’s a £12k race currently at a meeting that attracted a ‘crowd’ of 452 last year.
They’d better order more sausage rolls if that is the case.
The more I know the less I understand.
Henderson hinted a few weeks back that they might have a look at this.
CH could feasibly run both at Kempton and in the John Porter on 18th April.
Suppose it makes sense to have an all weather option, in case we get a dry spring.It might be a bit ambitious but I’d love to see Constitution Hill have a pop at the Coronation Cup at Epsom or even the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes…
In his heyday? Definitely. Now? Nah – I very much doubt he’s a Group One performer on the flat in the UK, Ireland or France, although he could possibly land one of those egg-and-spoon G1 races in lesser jurisdictions.
RTV broadcast a Balldoyle advert pretending to be an interview yesterday. O’Brien informed Don McLean that he intends to run Lambourn in the Coronation Cup.
I would find it quite funny if a Derby winner owned by The Lads was beaten by a horse that won the Champion Hurdle three years ago. But I don’t think it will happen.
The novice race at Kempton looks like an obvious target and then take it from there.
Looking at the field he’s running against I reckon Gaelic could finish 2nd … And me 3rd
Sounds like they are looking at the big handicaps further down the line which seems a little odd given that they avoided handicap hurdles races like the plague previously.
But they are looking to get him a handicap rating so would races like the Ebor (ground permiting) or the Northumberland Plate on Newcastle’s AW track (so ground not an issue) be possible options….especially if he doesn’t get a rating high enough to where he has to carry top weight in any of them.
Personally, I think he could be capable of winning a group race as there are plenty of weakly contested events at all group levels if you look around. The one thing that is ironic is that we will likely see more of him on the track in a flat campaign than we have ever seen him in any of his NH seasons (four runs being the maximum he ever managed there).
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