Road to the Champion Hurdle 2023

I'd love for someone to tell me when Nicky did get it wrong. He's won more big races by being cautious than he has lost.

Anyway that aside where to next? I can't tune in to hear interviews but did here he has mentioned Newcastle...Would have stand on JP's toes or go look elsewhere.....has he said?
 
Tanlic said:
They've seen sense and pulled L'Homme Presse out too...........no one should have anything negative to say about any of the withdrawls today

If you do want to point the finget at someone point up:lol:
Click to expand...

I do appreciate what you say, but how perfect do trainers want it nowadays? For the withdrawals, I can understand firm, I can understand good/firm, I can’t quite understand good since the name suggests it’s ……well, good and I can’t understand good/soft.

To listen to Henderson after he had walked the course and showed us the dig in the ground on his walking stick I can only assume that the clerk of the course embroidered the going description somewhat.
 
barjon said:
I do appreciate what you say, but how perfect do trainers want it nowadays? For the withdrawals, I can understand firm, I can understand good/firm, I can’t quite understand good since the name suggests it’s ……well, good and I can’t understand good/soft.

To listen to Henderson after he had walked the course and showed us the dig in the ground on his walking stick I can only assume that the clerk of the course embroidered the going description somewhat.
Click to expand...

The answer is quite simple mate. Good ground turning to good to soft is about as perfect as it gets but Good to Soft turning to good can be like running uphill on clay. Horses can take months to get over running on it when it becomes very tacky as it saps there strength. As far as Constutution Hill goes..........20 years ago Istabraq won over a million punds over hurdles. Thats enough to make any trainer to tread extra carefull with a horse like Constitution Hill who come along once in a lifetime (maybe thrice with Nicky LOL)
 
Morgiana looks interesting and I can understand Staesman being favourite as Sharjah has ben know to need his first run. Teahupoo was alot of peoples idea of a Champion Hurdle horse when he went off at single figures in last years race, He could prevent a Mullins 1-2
 
Tanlic said:
The answer is quite simple mate. Good ground turning to good to soft is about as perfect as it gets but Good to Soft turning to good can be like running uphill on clay. Horses can take months to get over running on it when it becomes very tacky as it saps there strength. As far as Constutution Hill goes..........20 years ago Istabraq won over a million punds over hurdles. Thats enough to make any trainer to tread extra carefull with a horse like Constitution Hill who come along once in a lifetime (maybe thrice with Nicky LOL)
Click to expand...

Going to have go respectfully disagree with this. The times recorded today indicate that the ground was as described and horses were pulled out of an abundance of caution that running first time out on quick NH ground increases the chance of them coming back slightly lame. That's probably true for some horses; whether it applies to Constitution Hill is another question but Henderson not wanting to take any risks with a potential superstar is understandable and he was pretty forthcoming that he would be a non-runner if the ground wasn't deemed suitable. Conditions were quicker today than yesterday so it seems that the overnight watering wasn't enough to maintain the headline good to soft.
 
ep1987 said:
Going to have go respectfully disagree with this. The times recorded today indicate that the ground was as described and horses were pulled out of an abundance of caution that running first time out on quick NH ground increases the chance of them coming back slightly lame. That's probably true for some horses; whether it applies to Constitution Hill is another question but Henderson not wanting to take any risks with a potential superstar is understandable and he was pretty forthcoming that he would be a non-runner if the ground wasn't deemed suitable. Conditions were quicker today than yesterday so it seems that the overnight watering wasn't enough to maintain the headline good to soft.
Click to expand...

On reflection I don't dispute what you are saying about yesterday after listening to Nicky on Twitter. However generally speaking what I said about tacky ground is spot on. I always remeber Jonjo pulling Albertas Run out of a race. "The horse loves g/s but drying out g/s becomes tacky and he hates that, plus it knocks the stuffing out of horse"..............Clerk of the Course Charlie Moore Quote "Problems come from change in temperature from cold to hot particularly, as that leads to races being staged on drying, tacky ground."
 
Thought Sharjah was going better until he appeared to blow up.

The 3rd was a 30 lengths behind Honeysuckle last season.........nice horse be a grand chaser someday but no Champion Hurdle horse.IMVHO
 
Henderson has left Constitution Hill in the Fighting Fifth, where the ground is currently Soft, G-S in places, with about 10mm in forecast before Saturday.

If the horse is dependent on Soft ground, then this is the obvious point to get him going, as you can't guarantee soft(er) at Cheltenham for the Bula/International, and you almost-certainly can't at Kempton for the Christmas Hurdle.

There's nothing else for the horse after that, until Haydock in January, or possibly Sandown in February.

He surely has to run against Epatante.......if he is as dependent as Henderson has implied?
 
Last edited:
Grasshopper said:
Henderson has left Constitution Hill in the Fighting Fifth, where the ground is currently Soft, G-S in places, with about 10mm in forecast before Saturday.

If the horse is dependent on Soft ground, then this is the obvious point to get him going, as you can't guarantee soft(er) at Cheltenham for the Bula/International, and you almost-certainly can't at Kempton for the Christmas Hurdle.

There's nothing else for the horse after that, until Haydock in January, or possibly Sandown in February.

He surely has to run against Epatante.......if he is as dependent as Henderson has implied?
Click to expand...

Agreed. We had some heavy rain near the track recently. I'm not surprised its currently soft.
 
I hope CHill and Epatatnte both run and it turns out another impressive display from CHiil because as I posted back in Augusts Chelt thread I have backed Epatante for the mares at 7/1. A decisive defat here like I expect would more or less guarantee her running.

I reckon Nicky will want to run them both to convince JP her CH days are in the past.
 
IF epatante was to beat CH on saturday and CH drifted for the champion hurdle,would you be a backer or layer.
 
Back
Top