Ruby Walsh thinks Gordon Elliott's mare Brighterdaysahead can sink Constitution Hill in the Unibet Champion Hurdle on day one at the Cheltenham Festival.
Walsh was speaking at the The Ultimate Cheltenham 2025 Preview Night, hosted by Paddy Power, and he admits he was blown away by what the six-year-old did in the Grade 1 Neville Hotels Hurdle at Leopardstown on December 29, where she won by 30 lengths.
He said: "I was watching it thinking, you’re going too fast, you’re going too fast, you’re going too fast the whole way and all of a sudden, they were going too fast for the pacemaker, he falls in a hole going to the third last, King Of Kingsfield, the next minute the mare picks up, heads on to the second last and away with her off the bend again.
"You’re thinking – she can’t – and she did and she kept doing it. And down to the last, she’s a bit long and had a grab and ran all the way to the line.
"Take out whatever way you read the race as in were the rest of them sharp enough at the start or why didn’t they follow her, when you just watch to me what she did, to me that was the best performance I saw over hurdles in Leopardstown in a long, long time.
"It’s the one hurdle performance this year that you went ‘Jesus’."
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Can you replicate that at Cheltenham?
"No it’s a more undulating track so it’s whatever way you look at it, how far do you think King Of Kingsfield will bring Brighterdaysahead? How far do you think he needs to bring Brighterdaysahead?
"I think King Of Kingsfield will bring her to the fourth last in the Champion Hurdle. She’ll take it off him as they rise up on to the top of the hill and it’ll be what the crowd want from there home – Nico will be on their tail, I hope two of Willie’s are right behind them and it’ll be whoever wins from there.
"But I think you’ll have some running done when you get past her."
If you were riding would you replicate Leopardstown?
"To an extent obviously the undulations in Cheltenham there are places where you have to up the ante and there are places where you have to slow a little bit, but I know when I went out to ride Annie Power, I was thinking about the way that Dawn Run was ridden.
"She just went flat out from the word go and galloped them into the ground and I was hellbent on doing that on Annie Power and I think this mare could do the same thing. I just think she’s spectacular."
Brighterdaysahead is a 2/1 chance with Paddy Power for the Champion Hurdle, with Nicky Henderson's Constitution Hill the 4/6 favourite to regain his crown from last year's winner State Man, a 6/1 chance.
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