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The 2026 William Hill Handicap Hurdle

The ground was dire, amazing that the class horses just coped with it with everything else really struggling. Just hope it hasn’t soured any of them.
 
I too have taken the 25/1 NRNB. Yes it might have been a freak performance that won’t be repeated on better ground and there’s probably further improvement required but I think this is a great price which has now gone
 
Desert Orchid said:
His hurdling is exceptionally slick and he has slaughtered some very well handicapped first- and second-season novices.
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barjon said:
The ground was dire, amazing that the class horses just coped with it with everything else really struggling. Just hope it hasn’t soured any of them.
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Running on that ground four weeks before Cheltenhan can't be a good idea.
 
Nicholls saying he wouldn’t run him if the festival ground was good, and that there’s no need to supplement him until a few days before the race, when connections would know the weather forecast.
 
Slim said:
Running on that ground four weeks before Cheltenhan can't be a good idea.
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I think if it had been under pressure from the home turn I'd be inclined to agree but he never looked out of his comfort zone and it's a lot easier to recover from races at shorter trips. I'd be more inclined to be negative about Haiti Couleurs.

But with TQ winning and WA and F placing second and third, that's another winning tricast I haven't backed following last week's big Leopardstown race.

The local cats are in hiding this evening.
 
Looking at the result do you work on the assumption that only the winner has run its race or how well have the beaten horses run?

Then take into account that, at two miles, mind, it has won one of the two most hotly contested UK 2m hcap hurdles by no less than 15 and 18 lengths.

Take it out of the race and by how much would the handicapper be inclined to raise WA for winning the race by those 18 lengths?

And Faivoir in third was running off 11lbs less than when beaten less than five lengths in the 2024 County to an absolute good thing.

I genuinely thought TQ was a 150+ horse going into today's race. I genuinely thought LIR was a 145 mare getting in off 124 but she never got competitive.

If you allow a pound for a length - the normal calc - and Faivoir running to its OR of 132 then TQ has run to 165. That might be good enough to win a CH-free Champion Hurdle.

I set about these things differently.

I work on Faivoir running to my best previous rating tis season, ie 146 but because the ground was extreme I allow only a half-pound per length so TQ has given Faivoir - my top rated on raw form this season - 6lbs (ignoring the Heidi Palin's allowance) and a further 17lbs beating.

Seemingly easily.

So (for the younger ones out there) 146 + 6 + 17 = 169.

Seemingly easily.

But what if Faivoir ran to its old rating of 150? I'm not sure it did but...

And what about the manner of victory?

As per last time in the GF, TQ made all at a fast pace, jumped very slickly, took everything out of its comfort zone and ran away from the closers after the last. Just like Make A Stand all those years ago.

I think they are entitled at the very least to consider running in the CH and if they don't then I get my money back.

For me, it's pretty much a no-lose scenario.
 
Given the ratings of those behind the winner ran like a "Schweppes " horse should against a field of horses that had no right to be in a premier handicap.
In all likelihood he ran to high 140s against 120 horses thus was two strides faster going down to the start, let alone when the race was on.
Comparing his weight carrying performance in any way to Persian War's in 1968 is, in my opinion total poppycock.
One day at Cork Apache Gold ran his 6 furlongs faster than the Champions Day Sprint winner did at Ascot the same day; in the same race Apache would have been lapped.
 
I must admit to some difficulty in sorting it out today in terms of rating/weight. The class horses (not just in this one) seemed to move majestically through it all with the opposition looking as if they had five pound weights strapped to their hooves. They all looked completely finished passing the post, whereas the class ones’ still looked quite perky.
 
Don't know how much rain fell during racing yesterday between the novice race and the William Hill handicap hurdle but Sober Glory was over 4 seconds faster than Tutti.

To suggest its anything like a Champion hurdle horse off the back of that is also poppycock ( what a beautiful replacement that is for a swear word thank you ed). He was beat a good distance himself at the festival last year, he was also well beaten in the Welsh champion this year. He won off 138 yesterday, whatever hocus pocus method or land of make believe you use to rate it, a Champion hurdle horse should be around 170 thats an extra 32lb. If you'd have put an extra 32lb on him yesterday he wouldnt of won. If form on desperate ground could be taken seriously then the likes Bristol de mai and Royal pagielle would have gone close in Gold cups.

It was a really good performance in a poor race, on bad ground. He's a relatively unexposed horse who Nicholls seems to thinks will make a good chaser in time. Why sometimes can't we just leave it at that without trying to make him the next big thing or back him for races that he's not even entered in and would barely have a punchers chance if he did.
 
edgt said:
Comparing his weight carrying performance in any way to Persian War's in 1968 is, in my opinion total poppycock.
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Did anyone do that?

I confess I was only half-paying attention during the lead-up or the aftermath as I had other things happening in the hacienda and I haven't read any reports.

So I have no idea who might have said it but I would agree that a comparison of that nature verges on ignorance. (Rooster Booster, had that dick Johnson ridden it better, in 2004 I would put in the same ballpark.)

I'll probably also need to look back at what MAS did in this race to see if TQ gets remotely close to that either but it was, for me, visually very impressive and, again for me, my numbers are backing it up.

I bemoaned beforehand the lack of quality in the ratings of the runners - a top weight in a Schweppes off 138 is pretty pathetic - but he has totally blown the field to bits with a degree of ease.

I think it's worth taking very seriously.
 
All these superlatives about blowing the field apart, annihilation, and dismantling a good field.

Would anyone like to give me a number for how many horses actually ran to a figure above 100 in the race?
 
Zarkander was the other Nicholls top weight who won this. He was rated 151 + we all remember he was just short of top class.
I'll be very surpised if TQ goes for the champion.. looks a prospect for the Arkle next season though.
 
I don’t know if it’s a hobby horse of the writer, or something to do with the ground conditions, but the RP Analysis across the card for each race (which doesn’t cover all the horses) mentions five horses that struck into themselves. My memory is failing fast, but that’s surely a high number?
 
I cannot recall a previous renewal of this race where almost half the field failed to complete the course.

Six pulled up in a Class 1 2m110yds Hurdle - that was some bad (and steadily deteriorating as it got more chewed up in relentless rain) ground.

It's not impossible that ground conditions will be just as atrocious at the Cheltenham Festival, but the odds must be against it.

I've put Walsworth on Cheltenham area water table watch for the next 30 days, or will do when he finally stops bragging about his speed dating exploits at Gosforth Park last Friday night.
 
Slim said:
Would anyone like to give me a number for how many horses actually ran to a figure above 100 in the race?
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That would probably depend on an individual's interpretation of the form, whether you take it at face value or worst-case scenario or anything in between, so the question is largely based on subjective premises which can be quicksand.

Nothing that raced in rear early ever got competitive. It's very difficult, they say, to come from the back in heavy ground unless the pace is fast. Well the pace was fast and they still never even got to those that raced in midfield.

One horse tried to chase the leader and it was beaten 58 lengths after reportedly rallying to dispute second place going to three out. You could probably argue that it possibly didn't hit 100 but horses well beaten in class 4 races regularly still post marks higher than 100.

Google AI says a length is about 8 or 9 feet. If we say it is 9 feet then 58 lengths equate to 522 feet or 174 yards or just over three-quarters of a furlong. Most people's recollection of the race would have been that it would have been beaten "out of sight". Racing parlance lends itself to seriously erroneous imagery. "X would lap Y" or "A would be lapped if it ran in the Derby" are not uncommon phrases but the reality is that if a 120 horse ran to that in the Derby then for a horse to finish a furlong behind it it would be worth a rating of just 20.

Last weekend, three of the first five home in the big 2m hcap hurdle at Leopardstown were rated in the low 120s, the sixth 131. It was run in heavy ground and the ninth home was less than 20 lengths behind the winner. It was a competitive race yet a lot of what I read yesterday and heard on TV was about how very competitive it was and how the likes of Let It Rain and All In You were very strongly fancied by connections and how strong their form or prospects were.

I just can't get away from the conclusion that, rather than it just being a freak outcome because of the conditions, Tutti Quanti has turned a usually hugely competitive race into a freakishly strung out finish.

As we keep saying it's all about opinions.

I'm not saying Tutti Quanti will win the Champion Hurdle [w/o Constitution Hill]. I'm saying I thought going into yesterday's race that TQ's GF form was 12lbs better than its 138 rating and that I thought it might be 10lbs better again because of how that race was run. (I also thought Let It Rain might be 20lbs better than its rating.) I'm now thinking (because I don't have enough info to home in on a figure) it might be a fair bit better again than I'd thought, in which case it would make it a contender for a place in a Champion Hurdle which is pretty thin on the ground for worthy contenders.
 
Just checked Make A Stand.

It won the Schweppes off 140 but its OR for the Champion Hurdle isn't published. My guess is that it was probably about 150.
 
If a horse gets to the front and gets an uncontested lead on very heavy ground, it only needs to run to its mark to win.

Anything held up yesterday may as well have been a NR. It was actually laughable how far behind All In You was, a good 35l behind the winner, when he made a mistake at the second hurdle.
How can you judge a race run like this as if all things are equal? It’s just pointless.

The DRF was run in similar conditions and I have reservations about all the formlines there, except for the novice hurdle that Talk The Talk won. Extreme firm or heavy ground nearly always means half the field is dead. Add a pace bias and you can make it 75% or more. Tutti Quanti backers were on great terms with themselves yesterday at every point of that race. There is no other horse in the race you could have backed that you’d have been hopeful of collecting on at any point. That’s not form I’d want to be making any positive conclusions on.
 
All I can add to that, Desert, is that all bar Tutti Quanti were adsolutely dead on their feet and even he was feeling it late on and just ploughed through the last. Still kept on and didn’t look remotely as tired as the rest. There’s no doubt, though, that he’s a really classy horse if only because it takes that class to do what he did. I know I keep prattling on about it, but I can’t stress enough how dire was the ground - I’ve rarely seen such knackered horses trailing in.
 
Slim said:
If a horse gets to the front and gets an uncontested lead on very heavy ground, it only needs to run to its mark to win.
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I tend to agree and that's why I'm looking at the runner-up, Wellington Arch.

Ignore the winner and the runner-up has pretty much done the same thing and has probably run to connections' expectations, ie I backed it (got 28/1) because Wreckless Eric seemed well-handicapped in its own right yet the stable jockey opted to ride WA which was backed in to 12/1. They'd thought enough of it to send it to a competitive Punchestown race in May and it ran well there so I presumed they'd started plotting yesterday's race at that point. And WA has run away from everything else that raced next to it.
 
I've had a look at some sectional stuff.

TQ was fastest over the first four furlongs (obviously) in a fast time. The TV pictures showed the pack closing a bit and over the next four furlongs all of the eventual finishers, bar the horse that finished last, were faster. Over the next two furlongs all bar Faivoir were faster. That would support the idea of Cobden giving it a breather (which he might not get at Cheltenham). From 4f out to 2f out the front two quickened while everything else was starting to slow down and from 6f out to the line TQ was fastest through every furlong. They were slowing down from two out to the line, TQ obviously slowing down the least. His jumping was also the slickest overall through the race where they are all rated A for jumping.

I don't think it was a classic case, as you often get in staying chases, in mud where the leader can go its pace and the others can't make the ground in the mud while the leader just slows down more gradually.

TQ went a pace the others couldn't go and when they eventually tried to close it burst them and then he quickened again. That's what he did in the GF as well.

Still, I'm wondering, given who the owners are, if the Coral Cup is the plan.
 
Heavy ground means being in front is best. I've no idea what sectionals could possibly tell you about yesterday's race. They're never going to go fast enough on heavy for a pace collapse. To me he's a horse that you needed to be on yesterday and any race going forward will be a race too late.
 
It was heavy at Leopardstown last week. The leader ended up beaten over 16 lengths. The winner was out the back early. The winner's closing sectional was over 100% but below optimal. It was arguably slowing the least.

I suspect the ground at Newbury was heavier but TQ went faster than the leader at Leopardstown. His closing section was around 98% so definitely slowing. Every physical element of the race says TQ should have stopped to a walk by three out in much the same way as the horse that finished last. In sectional terms you could argue that TQ is worth a huge mark-up for winning so well despite a very inefficient distribution of its energy.
 

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