The Road To The 2021 Champion Hurdle

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I've crunched some numbers for the Christmas Hurdle. And re-crunched.

Even allowing for Epatante being well below form, Silver Streak still emerges with a rating of at least 164. That also allows for Ballyandy being below form.

That still wouldn't be good enough to beat the mare if she came back to her very best but it puts SS on the same kind of level as Sharjah.

I'm happy to go with 164 for now while acknowledging the possibility that the form is better again if you believe Ballyandy ran his race.

The two least likely scenarios, I reckon, are that they ran their races and Silver Streak just improved massively for the aggressive ride or that everything bar the winner underperformed.
 
Anyone think we’ll see someone come from the chasing route to take this on?

Just looking through and it’s only Darver Star I can see that would, and he hasn’t a hope. Perhaps Klassical Dream if they can’t get him over a fence in time.

Looks another really underwhelming year.
 
Double J said:
Anyone think we’ll see someone come from the chasing route to take this on?

Just looking through and it’s only Darver Star I can see that would, and he hasn’t a hope. Perhaps Klassical Dream if they can’t get him over a fence in time.

Looks another really underwhelming year.
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Cilaos Emery picked up some dough last year but Klassical Dream wasn't even a good hurdler. Buveur Dair which Mo touted a while back is the only joker in the pack. Otherwise it's Epatante versus a cluster of 155 -165 horses trying to bridge the 7lb mares allowance.
 
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Slim said:
Cilaos Emery picked up some dough last year but Klssical Dream wasn't even a good hurdler. Buveur Dair which Mo touted a while back is the only joker in the pack. Otherwise it's Epatante versus a cluster of 155 -165 horses trying to bridge the 7lb mares allowance.
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I agree. Just looking through the novice Chase markets and there’s nothing in there that could come out and run a race. Perhaps Captain Guiness as well, but I’m not convinced of that horse or why he’s rated so highly by some.

Abacadabras at 14s looks decent value. Buveur at 25s is a steal if you knew he was going.
 
It will be one of those races on the day where plenty of horses will be backed against the fav. I'm not ruling out Saint Roi one bit.
 
granger said:
If honeysuckle wins the DRF race, does she go off fav in March?
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Doesn’t jump well enough for a Champion Hurdle I think. She’s in for a tough test with Concertista. Can’t see Willie sending Concertista at all to the Champion. I’m assuming she’ll have Daryl Jacob on board, so that’ll be her 7 pound allowance wiped off anyway.

Having said that, Ruby did ride Footpad so who knows.
 
The most relevant piece of form with regard to that horse's chance at Cheltenham is last year's Supreme. Anything in double figures is too big. He's a massive ew play.
 
He is I agree. He's also a very nice each way double with Samcro which is a bet I also took.
 
The worry with Aba [for me] is that I think he ducked out of the challenge with Shishkin in the Supreme. I think he's too soft for a Champion Hurdle.
 
Desert Orchid said:
The worry with Aba [for me] is that I think he ducked out of the challenge with Shishkin in the Supreme. I think he's too soft for a Champion Hurdle.
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If Shishkin is the monster some claim though, Aba on c/d form should be bang there at the business end. It’ll take an extremely good ride though.

If you asked me last year, id have backed Aba to reverse the form with Shiskin.

Not saying he’ll win, but 20/1 is by far the wrong price.
 
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Double J said:
If you asked me last year, id have backed Aba to reverse the form with Shiskin.

Not saying he’ll win, but 20/1 is by far the wrong price.
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Shishkin, for me, was at least five lengths better than the bare form. He had a nightmare journey.

If I didn't doubt Aba's guts I would agree about the price but I'd rather take 4/1 place only than 20/1 each-way. Whether any bookie will offer the 4/1 is another matter.
 
I'm happy enough with the place parts of a 20/1 and 16/1 double not to be worrying if Aba wants to put his head in front on the line!
 
Abacadabras is one of those yokes where, yeah, logically he’s over-priced at 20’s in a weak Champion Hurdle......but a little something inside you dies when you have the bet, because you know he’s probably a nancy-boy too.
 
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Grasshopper said:
Abacadabras is one of those yokes where, yeah, logically he’s over-priced at 20’s in a weak Champion Hurdle......but a little something inside you dies when you have the bet, because you know he’s probably a nancy-boy too.
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Great comment. Grassy. I don’t totally agree but get the point whilst laughing.
Aba and Indo for the Gold Cup were my first bets for this season and I’ve topped up on both in 2021. Was tempted to go in again on Aba but the scale of of the price drift leads me to think someone knows something.
 
I haven't been following too closely since Christmas (and plenty of racing has been called off), but has the Elliott yard got back to decent form?

Racing post suggest 62 percent of his recent runners are running to RPR which seems quite a turnaround??

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Difficult to say with any certainty given the unusual circumstances and quiet period but 1/19 this year would suggest not massively but then to check properly you'd need to consider the SPs of those runners and the placings compared to expected placings based on that.

But he did have a couple of odds on favs turned over during that time though admittedly one was Ginto who's price was based largely on reputation and he ran into a Willie horse that could turn out to be decent too.

I'll wait until the DRF has been run in a few weeks before making serious judgement on how his horses are running with regards ante post Cheltenham bets (assuming they get to come over) despite that meaning I could have missed the boat on some fancy prices and unfortunately it means betting any of his at the DRF will require a somewhat leap of faith.
 
Was there a discussion here (might have been elsewhere or on the phone) about this being nothing new, that he can go through quiet spells around this time but his horses stormed the festival?
 
Desert Orchid said:
Was there a discussion here (might have been elsewhere or on the phone) about this being nothing new, that he can go through quiet spells around this time but his horses stormed the festival?
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I don't remember the particular conversation but it was something I looked at myself previously as I was convinced he was targeting certain periods. I looked at data from October 2015 - April 2020 and teh only clear and consistent trend were that his horses consistently peak in October and February each year.
 
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