The Champion Hurdle 2010

...just my luck if he switches races and I lose my 7/4 on him!:( Also Paddy Power would not have to worry about refunding losing bets on the Supreme!
 
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I think this race is really beginning to cut up.

I'm not a huge Go Native fan, but fear him on the bridle over the last. Think he is very short regardless now. Solwhit doesn't look all that likely to line up, and even if he did, you would have to be against him after taking antibiotics and missing work.

Two I really like are Punjabi, who i think they all have to match up to, and to a little less degree, Medermit, who has done nothing but improve all season, and I think he would have won the Supreme last season but for interferene after the last.
 
Euronymous said:
Dunguib now shortening for the Champion and out to close to Evens for the Supreme.
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Doesn't look like Dunguib's connections will be tempted to switch. They say that Punchestown is the earliest he will come up against the "big guns".
 
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Got to love the way Dunguib's connections have behaved this season - trainer very open all season with plans for the horse, staying loyal to their inexperienced jockey and generally coming off as a sound bunch with the best interest of the horse in mind at all times. The Punchestown idea is very fair.
 
Cheers granger, it just crossed my mind. Wouldn't be a big fan of Condon. I think he's improved immeasurably in the last year or two but in such a tight contest i'd be switching my alegiance's if Carberry wasn't certain to be on board........although lets not rule out injury or some madness in the next week!
 
From Sporting Life

Meade said: "I'm sure a lot of trainers of soft-ground horses will welcome the news, but then there are those like us that don't really want it.
"But he handled it last year in the Supreme when it was good to soft and it had rained on the Monday night.
"The danger is if they get it wrong and over-water or it rains heavily overnight, you just never know.
"The ground at Kempton was against him - it was tacky - and that's what he doesn't want.
"He's in fine form at the moment anyway and we are just counting down the days."
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I had a good look through the Champion Hurdle form last night.

My over-riding reaction is that the Irish form is very dodgy this season. Slow times, Sublimity and bad horses too close up, etc etc. I wouldn't be surprised if the Irish failed to get into the frame.

It's very easy (and fairly logical, actually) to crab Celestial Halo's Wincanton run. But if you look through every beaten horse and take out the best its subsequent form, you end up with Celestial Halo being so far in front of everything it's frightening. Just how far below form must each of them have been for the form not to amount to anything. And, as I said, it was the fastest 2m hurdle race I've measured this season.

I can accept I'm wrong here. The fact he was still 16/1 the other day is all the evidence anyone needs that I'm farting against thunder.

But then I looked at his two subsequent defeats. He emerges from the Boylesports a better horse than Khyber Kim and Medermit. Medermit will be beside Punjabi wherever that one is. And then in Ireland despite patently disappointing, he wasn't beaten at all far. I think Ireland may have been a bit of an afterthought and that he was not quite ready to run to his maximum there. Maybe they thought he could win it without being 100%, in much the same way they thought Denman could win the Aon undercooked.

I have to say, my overall conclusion from last night's 'work' was that the UK trained horses are perfectly entitled to dominate the finish and I see no reason why Celestial halo shouldn't win. Khyber Kim will carry enough to cover all my bets on Celestial Halo as I rate him the main danger.

I'll post my ratings later, when I get the chance.
 
Desert Orchid said:
It's very easy (and fairly logical, actually) to crab Celestial Halo's Wincanton run. But if you look through every beaten horse and take out the best its subsequent form, you end up with Celestial Halo being so far in front of everything it's frightening. Just how far below form must each of them have been for the form not to amount to anything. And, as I said, it was the fastest 2m hurdle race I've measured this season.
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Steve Mellish was of an identical view on Racing UK's Cheltenham Preview yesterday.
 
At 16/1 a week before the race, I wouldn't be in as much of a hurry to cran Celestial Halo's form as I was when he was 8's in December. If there was a bet left in the race, I think it may be him.
 
Desert Orchid said:
My over-riding reaction is that the Irish form is very dodgy this season. Slow times, Sublimity and bad horses too close up, etc etc. I wouldn't be surprised if the Irish failed to get into the frame.
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Apart from Go Native and Solwhit (who's looking like a NR) what Irish horse would you expect to make the frame DO?
 
In betting order:

Go Native 163+ (165?)
Solwhit 168?
Zaynar 165+ t
Medermit 165p
Punjabi 165
Khyber Kim 171p
Binocular* 161 (163)
Starluck 163
Celestial Halo 172+

(*Binocular may not be so far below his best this season as everyone would have you believe. He only put up one apparently decent performance in what, in hindsight, may have been a bad race at Ascot - the one in which CH went off like a scalded cat tied to a dragster.)
 
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hezz said:
Apart from Go Native and Solwhit (who's looking like a NR) what Irish horse would you expect to make the frame DO?
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I wrote my figures last night on a printoff of the odds. Go Native, Solwhit, Dunguib (146++) are the first three in the market and Sublimity was in the mix in a few of the races so I subconsciously included him. But it's a fair point.
 
Desert Orchid said:
It's very easy (and fairly logical, actually) to crab Celestial Halo's Wincanton run. But if you look through every beaten horse and take out the best its subsequent form, you end up with Celestial Halo being so far in front of everything it's frightening.
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Does that in itself not raise huge doubts? Frighteningly good but having shown nothing like it before or afterwards coupled with it being at the start of the season etc. Common sense tells us to look at that form suspiciously rather than looking for the positives.
 
Exactly. And what does an early season run around Wincanton tell us about how they will do at Cheltenham?

If it didn't look to me like the horse had gone, and he hadn't run at Ireland, I would agree 16/1 is a little bit of value. This, however, would have nothing whatsoever to do with form around Wincanton in an early season handicap, and everything to do with last season's CH form, and possibly a little this season's Boylesports.

The fact he is 100% going novice chasing (already being schooling) next season is a major negative.
 
Are you not worried by Stewart's complete lack of enthusiasm for his chances, and the novice chasing decision?
 
Go Native, winner of the Fighting Fifth and Christmas Hurdle, is representing UK as much as Irish form.


Mind you, I'm forgetting that the Fighting Fifth had so many Irish runners in it that it should have been switched to Leopardstown.
 
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The fact he is 100% going novice chasing (already being schooling) next season is a major negative.
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I'm a cynical so and so , please forgive me. Has anyone besides the trainer seen the horse schooling over fences ?
 
Both Nicholls and Stewart have said this a couple of times.

Why so cynical? :) Or, rather what are you cynical about - Stewart is hardly trying to get a price!
 
Hamm said:
Both Nicholls and Stewart have said this a couple of times.

Why so cynical? :) Or, rather what are you cynical about - Stewart is hardly trying to get a price!
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I am pure of heart myself, it's everyone else I don't believe :D

Everybody likes a price. I don't really buy into Dessies opinion about the strenght of CH wincanton run but it is plausible that having seen what he could do there they than decided to go easy on him and just keep him ticking over till Cheltenham. Why go to Ireland to keep a horse ticking over you ask, fair question.

Does Mr Stewart not like a punt ? Does he have medals for honesty ;)
 
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Are you not worried by Stewart's complete lack of enthusiasm for his chances, and the novice chasing decision
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Yes. And I had backed him

But i can easily see them all ending up in a heap again this year and CH is one you would want to have in that mix. To my mind GN is the best horse in the race (esp now with solwhit doubts) but hes not one that i would like to have fighting for the front in "a mix"

Not known a CH for years where there are so many stand out doubts about the leading contenders
 
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