That Constitution Hill will be paraded before Tuesday’s Unibet Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham underlines how offbeat a renewal of the hurdling championship it is.
The New Lion’s clash with a trio of top mares in Lossiemouth, Brighterdaysahead and Golden Ace makes for an intriguing enough prospect. But Constitution Hill’s ceremonial pre-race trot inevitably introduces a wistful tone to proceedings.
How one of the finest hurdlers of all time ended up too dangerous a liability for the sport to risk on its biggest stage – because of his inability to reliably get from one side of an obstacle to another without falling – makes for a sense of what-might-have-been.
The timorous decision to not risk him – one almost certainly made to the relief of Britain’s racing authorities – speaks of a sport worryingly unsure of its essential challenge. It invariably begs the question that if falling is too great a risk for the best horses on the biggest stage, what’s different about every other horse on every other kind of stage when not everybody’s looking?
Even the stage’s spectator appeal is in the spotlight this week. It’s only four years since over 280,000 attendees crammed into Prestbury Park for the biggest four days of the racing year. Last year, that tally dived to less than 219,000 – a 22 per cent drop. TV audience figures remain encouraging, as do betting figures, but the festival has a rejuvenation job to do on the ground.
Last year’s combined attendance at the four days of the Cheltenham festival was 219,000, down from 280,000 in 2022. Photograph: Mike Egerton/PA Wire
Much of that slide can be attributed to a competition problem, but it looks like it might be turning that around ahead of Tuesday’s 1.20 kick-off.
There is a renewed pep in the step of a home team that has been pummelled too often in the last decade to justify some of the overheated branding about the festival’s famed Anglo-Irish rivalry. Only the most optimistic don’t believe Irish-trained horses won’t win the majority of the 28 races up for grabs. But neither should it be at the scale of the 23-5 cakewalk in 2021.
Then again, there’s the increasing suspicion that Cheltenham’s most successful ever figure has timed his festival run to perfection. 113 festival wins testifies to Willie Mullins’ capacity for such timing and after a comparative lull prior to Christmas, it’s striking how the champion trainer’s strike rate has reached nearly 40 per cent in the last three weeks.
“The racetracks form of the horses has been fantastic over the last 10 days to two weeks and if we can reproduce that form across the water, hopefully we’ll get a winner or two,” Mullins said. Considering he saddled 10 festival winners last year – and in 2022 – it’s fair to assume he’s anticipating more than one or two.
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Just how many might be underlined quickly on Tuesday, on the run up to the Champion Hurdle. A couple of early Mullins winners will have bookmakers running scared in the big race, where the champion trainer runs a trio topped by Lossiemouth. The triple festival winner finally gets a shot at the championship prize where she will wear first-time cheekpieces.
A pair of Mares Hurdle victories, on top of the 2023 Triumph, turned out to be routine successes for the popular grey, albeit leaving their own sense of what-might-have-been. Mullins’s instinct to go for the sure win has been abandoned this time and the new headgear reflects the concern that a top-class performer at 2½ miles needs to sharpen her act over two.
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Lossiemouth’s old rival and compatriot Brighterdaysahead hasn’t delivered her A-game at Cheltenham for the last two years, although an Aintree success as a novice suggests transferring her best across the Irish Sea isn’t an issue. Gordon Elliott is stabling her away from the racecourse this time and Brighterdaysahead beat Lossiemouth and Poniros at last month’s Dublin Racing Festival.
That was a hard race and it remains to be seen how the horses bounce out of it. In contrast, the plucky winner of last year’s incident-packed race, Golden Ace, hasn’t run since Christmas. Her capacity for scooping up top prizes that fall into her lap will ensure she has her supporters again.
Crucially, the three mares will have a 7lb sex allowance on their side. Mares have won the Champion Hurdle four times in the last six years. It could emerge as one of the biggest factors The New Lion has to overcome. Another is a suspect jumping technique that failed him last November in the Fighting Fifth. His prep for this in January was little more than a lucrative school.
Nevertheless, The New Lion looks to be in prime position to supply his owner JP McManus with a remarkable tenth Champion Hurdle success. He mightn’t be in the class of the legendary Istabraq, but in a year when the star performer is reduced to a walk-on part, The New Lion may not have to be.
