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I don’t think they are frightened to lose as such as there can only be one winner at Cheltenham too. They just see it as the be all and end all and prepare their horse for the big day according to what they think gives them the best chance. It’s mad as like I say they can’t all win
Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
Speaking as the author of this thread, the world’s leading authority on Constitution Hill, 2023 TRF Forumite Of The Year (virtually elect before a vote has even been cast) and self-proclaimed genius and deity I hope the horse is immediately retired to stud despite being a gelding.
The fact I’ve got 12s and 10s about him never winning another Champion Hurdle on a point of general value principle is entirely unrelated.
He has to never run in another one for this happen because none of them will ever see which way he went if he actually turns up.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"100% Ian.
Even I’ve had to stop backing him at 2/5 just in case he doesn’t runGaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
Night Nurse ran 64 times over hurdles and fences, winning 32; it’s regarded as the Golden Age of hurdling. Is it any wonder interest in racing is dwindling, when the great horses don’t take each other on over the season. More understandable for staying chasers, but for 2-mile hurdlers?
For a short period of time yesterday he drifted to evens for the Fighting Fifth.
The more I know the less I understand.
One of the great contemporary racing sadnesses for me is that the Golden Age of hurdling coincided with teenage me first getting into racing and, watching Night Nurse, Comedy Of Errors, Lanzarote, Monksfield, Birds Nest, Sea Pigeon et al I assumed at the time this was the perpetual norm.
Would that it had turned out to be.
In 2023 a horse like Sea Pigeon would have been sold at the end of his Flat 3yo campaign to race in Hong Kong and the rest would be wrapped in cotton wool between Festivals.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"We all generally love the festival but it is midly if not bloody annoying the season revolves around it. Few weeks ago trials for races at the event and not long after the NH season kicked in someone referred to a potential Arkle candidate. All been said before and it will only get worse.
The more I know the less I understand.
“Midly if not bloody annoying”.
It is bloody annoying, RTB. The Cheltenham Festival is killing the rest of the National Hunt season.
Too many of the best horses are having only one or two runs before the Festival. And there are far too many graded races with small fields and odds on favourites, especially in Ireland. It does not help that almost all the best horses are with just a few trainers.
Throw in low sun ruining plenty of races at this time of the year and an increasingly vocal and well funded anti-racing movement and it is not a good outlook.
That is before we even mention affordability checks.
I know it’s 20 years back now but flat bred Istabraq went between 6 and 8 runs a season before foot and mouth cancelled Cheltenham and age caught up . 40 runs in all . Didn’t do his health any harm as he turns 32 in few weeks .
And he would take in Cheltenham, Aintree, and Punchestown. Beaten a few times, once by Limestone Lad, who was a force of nature over 2 + 1/2 in soft ground; didn’t affect his reputation.
Ian,
The problem is the races you remember those great hurdlers running in, no longer exist. They all used to turn up in the Marlow Ropes John Skeaping Hurdle at Sandown on the last Saturday in October. Then the Fighting Fifth was run three weeks earlier than it is now. Newbury at the end of November had the Gerry Fielden Hurdle, now a handicap which had a top weight rated 138 last weekend.
The Bula Hurdle has been transferred to the trials meeting at the end of January. The HSS Hire Shops Hurdle at Ascot just before Xmas and the New years Day Hurdle at Windsor just after are long gone.
Farewell too the Oteley Hurdle at Sandown in February, a race dating back to 1949 and won by the likes of National Spirit, Lanzarote, Sea Pigeon, Birds Nest, Heighlin , Desert Orchid and See You Then. We can guess what happened to the Wolverhampton and Nottingham Champion Hurdle Trials and the Berkshire Hurdle run at Newbury eleven days before the Champion, which was last used as a prep by Morley Street.
Difficult to run a Champion Hurdle horse six or seven times when there are so few opportunities.
Think there are still plenty of choices if connections are ambitious enough. Fighting Fith/Morgiana/Hattons Grace, then Christmas/Matheson, then Irish Champion, then Cheltenham, then Aintree, and finally Punchestown. That’s only six races, well-spaced, in a season; could throw in a few Grade 2s and carry the penalty.
Agree with befair, some trainers want races on a plate, no matter how uncompetitive they may be. Nicky Henderson last season bemoaned the fact that some Micky Mouse hurdle had been discontinued as a prep. No surprise he was in favour of a 5 day Cheltenham.
If you owned/trained Constitution Hill or any similar Champion Hurdler why would you not want to run in the Irish Champion Hurdle and the Punchestown Champion Hurdle?“some Micky Mouse hurdle had been discontinued”
That race has been won by the likes of National Spirit, Lanzarote, Sea Pigeon, Bird’s Nest, Desert Orchid, See You Then, Rooster Booster and Buveur d’Air, amongst others. Hardly “Micky Mouse”.
I remember the Sandown race well – had the one late October at Kempton replaced it or did they used to run in tandem?
Changes to the race program haven’t helped – anyone else remember the lesser-known Yorkshire Hurdle, I was there at Doncaster in January 1978 to see Night Nurse beat Birds Best in a thriller in it – but the game has fundamentally changed, I feel.
Cotton wool between Festivals rules nowadays.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Ian,
Kempton and Sandown were run two weeks apart and there was a race at the Newbury mixed meeting in between – three conditions hurdle races in a fortnight.
For example, in 1977, Grand Canyon won at Kempton on Oct 15th, Beacon Light beat Night Nurse and Dramatist at Newbury on Oct 21st and an outsider called Swift Shadow beat Birds Nest and Dramatist at Sandown on Oct 29th.
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