With Constitution Hill out of the Unibet Champion Hurdle, David Ord looks at a race - and division - sorely lacking strength in depth.
Willie Mullins made the point at his recent media day about how important the big horses are.
Take away Galopin Des Champs and State Man, he said, and how different would the Closutton season – and their Cheltenham prospects - look?
On Monday we got confirmation that take Constitution Hill away from the Unibet Champion Hurdle, and the two-mile hurdling cupboard is almost bare.
It’s not quite, saved by one horse.
State Man is now as short in the betting as Constitution Hill himself was before the wheels come off at Kempton last week. A Grade One-winning machine in Ireland, he’s already operating at the sort of level that would win an ordinary Champion Hurdle. Ratings-wise he’s around where Buveur D’Air was with Timeform before his own moment in the Cheltenham sun in the spring of 2018.
But he’s the only runner in the field who is.
Second favourites are Irish Point, who fundamentally wants further but runs here to avoid a clash with stable and owner-mate Teahupoo in the Stayers’, and Lossiemouth.
She won’t run though. Mullins has been very clear about that. He prefers the Mares’ Hurdle this year and it would take significant pressure from owner Rich Ricci to force a change of heart, and that doesn’t look likely. Willie doesn’t like his arm being twisted, and not many are prepared to chance it.
She’s the one who would add lustre to the field. There was some substance to go along with the style of her sparkling Unibet Hurdle win in January. She’s the second highest-rated runner in the field on Timeform’s weight-adjusted figures and while six pounds below State Man, she has the 'p' to signal we haven’t seen the best of her yet.
Another stablemate Impaire Et Passe started the campaign as the one who threatened to get involved towards the top of this division, but a rear view of State Man on his last two starts persuaded his team to wait for Aintree.
It’s Liverpool too for Bob Olinger, second to State Man at the Dublin Racing Festival, and back somewhere close to the level he was operating at when a star novice back in 2021.
And can you think of anything else that is missing? No, me neither. And that’s the frightening thing.
Thank goodness for the remarkable Not So Sleepy, heading to the race for the fifth time at the age of 12. He was pulled-up in 2020 and has finished fifth in the last three renewals at 125/1 (twice) and 150/1.
He could be a single-figure price come Tuesday week and that’s not because, for all he won the Betfair Fighting Fifth at Sandown, he’s suddenly found a stone of improvement in the autumn of his career.
Kerry Lee is rolling the dice with Kingwell Hurdle hero Nemean Lion, Pied Piper is likely to turn up too. He’s hit the frame at the last two Festivals in the JCB Triumph and the 2023 County (from a mark of 154), and recently changed hands for 570,000 euros.
You can’t blame connections of any of them for giving it a go - we really need them to - but to put it into context, even though one of them is likely to hit the frame, they are 13, 13 and 12 pounds shy of State Man and that would have been 23, 23 and 22 shy of Constitution Hill.
There’s no doubt the Champion Hurdle in recent years has been weakened by the modern trend of sending horses chasing at the first opportunity. Marine Nationale was directed that way straight from winning last year’s Sky Bet Supreme for example.
It’s a division crying out for fresh blood, a flood not a trickle would be ideal, but right now we'll take anything.
Looking at the betting for this year’s Cheltenham novice hurdles, they are dominated by Ballyburn, Tullyhill, Mystical Power and Ile Atlantique, all trained by Mullins and at least three of them seemingly ready-made chasers for next year.
Maybe if Mystical Power was to win a Supreme, he might hang around for another season over timber. Then there’s Sir Gino, so impressive on Trials Day and odds-on for the Triumph Hurdle.
He looked good that day, but we know all about the difficult second-season syndrome for juveniles and he’s trained by Henderson. Two trainers hold all the cards when it comes to the two-milers right now, although maybe Caldwell Potter could do something at Aintree to force himself into the reckoning.
That’s all in the future - in the right here, right now, it’s hard to be too optimistic that there will be significant change in the next couple of years at least, or a Champion Hurdle next week that will significantly quicken the pulse.
News of the defection of a horse like Constitution Hill missing a big race casts light on various areas. The obvious reaction was frustration, to lose the poster boy of the week eight days out is a blow to a Festival that needs all the help it can get this year.
Frustration too at his light campaign to this point, one run by March for the potentially best hurdler we’ve ever seen, no-one can be satisfied with that.
But then you look at what’s left in the Champion Hurdle without him. The presence of the Henderson star and State Man has papered over the cracks for the last two years.
Take one out and you’re left with a lop-sided Grade One. The concern is it remains that way for some time too.
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