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Champion Hurdle 2026

Danny said:
He was beat yesterday when he fell. Game over they were queuing up.

I actually wish he'd stood up and got beat more chance they'd have rerouted him then.
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I think it's one of those inconclusive cases where people see what they want to see.
I thought he hadn't got going yet.
 
Ian_Davies said:
I'm with Danny on this - there are better bets than the General Belgrano at 9/2 for a race next March most days of the week, that's for sure.
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If you're talking from a betting perspective especially as an Antepost point of view whether he's 4/1 or 9/2 something like that i havent checked but where would he go next and what would he have to do to make that price contract ? What are his options because if its a Christmas hurdle on the usual decent ground there i couldn't fancy him against anything half decent. The Irish champion maybe on slower ground? I cant really see him going there. What are his other options ? Whatever you think about yesterdays race surley Anzadam is entitled to improve more than the New lion off the back of that ?
 
If The New Lion went and won the Bula Hurdle (or whatever it's called now) or the Christmas Hurdle with authority - looking a 160+ horse at circa 2m in the process - I'd change my mind.

I fell out of love with Anzadam yesterday - I really, really, didn't like what I saw at the business end.

He's a more realistic price now, but I'm still not interested.

Right now, your Alexeis etc are still a good stone off being in the mix, but rather than fly a kite at 40/1 I'd rather burgle 16s in the immediate aftermath of another impressive win if it happens that's going to shunt the OR up another 7lb+.

But if we get to the day and I haven't had a bet on this race yet I won't be losing any sleep over it.
 
edgt said:
Any chance WPM might bring Kopek back over hurdles ?
Ricci would rather a Mares win with Lossiemouth than a Champion Hurdle second; Mr McCarthy is the type of character that is in for the crack more than anything else....
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No. He's clearly made for fences.
 
Last year I went the whole season without one ante-post bet for Cheltenham which was unusual for me as in years gone by I'd of held a bunch of them with mixed results and as I'd said to outsider recently it's not much use nabbing a fancy price about one and crowing about it if you had half a dozen other tickets that fell by the wayside at the declaration stage. However I've already had a couple of goes New lion for the stayers and Celtic Dino for the champion both at 40+ prices. With the champion hurdle market in a bit of chaos and the masses of uncertainty about where the next star is coming from I thought I'd have a little scan through and see if anything struck me as a possible.

As Euro had mentioned William Munny has probably a better claim than the new lion at the prices but I hadn't realised that he's 8yo coming 9 so I'd wonder how much scope there is there for further improvement. Golden ace has shortened after her win and when Len mentioned that he thought she was a good each way for the Champion hurdle I was a bit dismissive as she was being well beaten in it last year. But having watched back the champion and Punchestown races in fairness she was only a diminishing 4 lengths behind Stateman and possibly might of fought back up the hill to be a similar distance behind him at Cheltenham had he stood up at the last, looking at this bunch I'm wondering how many of them would get within 4 lengths of Stateman on a going day ? So at 30's plus he has a more than fair ticket.

In my eyes ante-post markets nearly always over react to any positive result and the same can be said sometimes that they can over react to a negative one. Things certainly can change over the course of the season and when Stateman finished half the track behind Brighterdaysahead at Leopardstown that he'd be have been in the process of completely reversing that form when he came down at Cheltenham in mid March. That said it's very hard to back one that's tailed off or run terribly in it's last run and take a leap of faith that they'll return to some sort of form later on in the season but I'll give it a go. Looking through the lists I've seen Irancy is 66/1. Tailed off behind Lossie on seasonal return, also well beaten in the Supreme last March and he was also beaten on his Seasonal debut. All 3 of those performances have come off the back of long break. He has won off the back of a break before so it may not all be down to that but every time he's faced heavy defeats he's bounced back to win next time up. His 9L win in a Grade 1 novices from Salvator mundi finished last years campaign on a high. He hurdles very well and for me that performance even though Kopeck de Bordes didn't run to form still shows enough quality to think he has at least an equal chance to any of the other Novices from last season. To my mind given his history for the betting to have completely written him off after a poor performance last time out is an overeaction. The fact I've got a Ladbrokes account in full working order means I can boost the 66/1 to 75/1 and that's enough to have tempted me to have a few quid e/w at the price.
 
I like the thinking Danny, my worry would be is he going to be Willies County horse. Got a good mark already. He’ll have one laid out for it, and unless he’s bringing in one of the dual purpose horses (Ethical, Absurde) my thinking was this was his one.
 
Double J said:
I like the thinking Danny, my worry would be is he going to be Willies County horse. Got a good mark already. He’ll have one laid out for it, and unless he’s bringing in one of the dual purpose horses (Ethical, Absurde) my thinking was this was his one.
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Isn't he 157 Irish rating add a few pounds on for the English conversion and he's not running in a county off 160.
 
Danny said:
Last year I went the whole season without one ante-post bet for Cheltenham which was unusual for me as in years gone by I'd of held a bunch of them with mixed results and as I'd said to outsider recently it's not much use nabbing a fancy price about one and crowing about it if you had half a dozen other tickets that fell by the wayside at the declaration stage. However I've already had a couple of goes New lion for the stayers and Celtic Dino for the champion both at 40+ prices. With the champion hurdle market in a bit of chaos and the masses of uncertainty about where the next star is coming from I thought I'd have a little scan through and see if anything struck me as a possible.

As Euro had mentioned William Munny has probably a better claim than the new lion at the prices but I hadn't realised that he's 8yo coming 9 so I'd wonder how much scope there is there for further improvement. Golden ace has shortened after her win and when Len mentioned that he thought she was a good each way for the Champion hurdle I was a bit dismissive as she was being well beaten in it last year. But having watched back the champion and Punchestown races in fairness she was only a diminishing 4 lengths behind Stateman and possibly might of fought back up the hill to be a similar distance behind him at Cheltenham had he stood up at the last, looking at this bunch I'm wondering how many of them would get within 4 lengths of Stateman on a going day ? So at 30's plus he has a more than fair ticket.

In my eyes ante-post markets nearly always over react to any positive result and the same can be said sometimes that they can over react to a negative one. Things certainly can change over the course of the season and when Stateman finished half the track behind Brighterdaysahead at Leopardstown that he'd be have been in the process of completely reversing that form when he came down at Cheltenham in mid March. That said it's very hard to back one that's tailed off or run terribly in it's last run and take a leap of faith that they'll return to some sort of form later on in the season but I'll give it a go. Looking through the lists I've seen Irancy is 66/1. Tailed off behind Lossie on seasonal return, also well beaten in the Supreme last March and he was also beaten on his Seasonal debut. All 3 of those performances have come off the back of long break. He has won off the back of a break before so it may not all be down to that but every time he's faced heavy defeats he's bounced back to win next time up. His 9L win in a Grade 1 novices from Salvator mundi finished last years campaign on a high. He hurdles very well and for me that performance even though Kopeck de Bordes didn't run to form still shows enough quality to think he has at least an equal chance to any of the other Novices from last season. To my mind given his history for the betting to have completely written him off after a poor performance last time out is an overeaction. The fact I've got a Ladbrokes account in full working order means I can boost the 66/1 to 75/1 and that's enough to have tempted me to have a few quid e/w at the price.
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There are far worse bets than Irancy @ 66/1 - I was actually looking at him last night.

As Danny states, his Punchestown victory form reads very well.

His OR is actually only 2lb below that of The New Lion and, unlike the latter, he's a proper 2m hurdler and not a BOAT.
 
Ian_Davies said:
There are far worse bets than Irancy @ 66/1 - I was actually looking at him last night.

As Danny states, his Punchestown victory form reads very well.

His OR is actually only 2lb below that of The New Lion and, unlike the latter, he's a proper 2m hurdler and not a BOAT.
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Beat 34 3/4l by Lossiemouth. You lads are trying hard to find things that aren't there.
 
Ian_Davies said:
I think there's just a chance he didn't run his race that day.

The April Punchestown win was there alright.

Plus he's three figures on the machine - bit big IMO.
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If you're taking the form of the Punchestown win seriously it can only mean you didn't watch the race.
 
Slim said:
If you're taking the form of the Punchestown win seriously it can only mean you didn't watch the race.
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I did watch the race - maybe he's the only one that ran his race, but he's had two previous Grade 1 Novice winners behind him and, in what looks an open year so far (you said yourself the division is poor recently) I can't have him being a three-figure price.

So I can see where Danny is coming from.
 

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