Equinties - love the champion

Gm Equinauts

Log in to Racing X on any given weekend and you wouldn’t be criticised for thinking you’d inadvertently entered the digital government of horse racing where, quite like the Palace of Westminster, members will often furnish with opinion dressed as fact, irrespective of their qualifications or experience with the subject matter at hand.

Unlike the political government we are so fastened to (for five years or more) which may or may not have received your backing, one of the excellent advantages of X, or any social platform for the matter, is the ability to vote for the voices you want to represent your content feed. By simply clicking the follow button – you can effectively build your own ‘Racing Parliament’, an elected authority to serve you with the racing commentary and insight you want.

Your voting history is monitored though. For what might seem a wholly independent and freethinking election of information received, the voting system of the follow or like buttons mean Elon’s algorithm works hard in the background to offer suggestion by association

and some days you simply can’t help but come across a load of f*cking tripe.

Let’s dive in.

HEADINE ROUND UP

IT’S OKAY TO LOVE THE CHA

Being a contrarian can be useful sometimes. Take gambling as an example – when you think the market has it wrong, betting against sheep can often pay.

There are times though, especially post-event when there is no money at risk, people choose to be different to be cool, and good lord were some ‘racing’ accounts insufferable in their bid to be cool this weekend.

Now, we’re in the firm belief that the above post was pure click-bait, some top-level trolling. If it’s not, Nicky Henderson must have had an affair with this lads mum and caused his Dad to walk out, leaving nothing but a broken home because honestly, that would have to be the only be the reasonable cause for such ill feeling.

No one in their right mind could form such a determined view against CONSTITUTION HILL after his performance Saturday.

There were very few things to learn about our champion horse this weekend, he won an easy renewal of the Unibet Hurdle at odds of 1/12 in a canter and Nico’s post-race comments were that he wasn’t even blowing.

So, while we remind ourselves how hard it is to stay at the top in any sport, what were the things we can take away from his win?

Firstly, as expected, he’s clearly stripped a lot fitter for his run at Kempton in the Christmas Hurdle as confirmed by the ever-entertaining post-race comments from Nico that ‘he (CONSTITUTION HILL) wouldn’t even blow a candle out’.

Boxing Day was the first time we’ve really seen him come half off the bridle, and de Boinville is convinced that he needed the run, which is natural for any horse making their first start in 366 days!

He also seemed to travel a lot more effortlessly on Saturday, and that’s considering the quality of the field. The horses in behind will most certainly not be winning a Champion Hurdle anytime soon, yet the way kicked BRENTFORD HOPE – a 146-rated Grade 2 runner-up – into touch so effortlessly despite a big mistake at the last was a thing of beauty.

Let’s talk about that mistake, because again, there were just so many people on Racing X desperate to be relevant in the playground.

The reality is, it was a split-second mistake on both of their parts; Nico went for a very long one, CONSTITUTION HILL decided to chip in. Now, for any normal horse, asking for such a big one probably wouldn’t be a viable, but this horse is such a machine and jumps for fun, a long stride is just how he’s approached every single jump in public to date.

Apart from that last one.

Nico assumed he would go with him, and he didn’t, he second guessed Nico and chipped in. He’s not done that before, and let’s be clear, that’s not a negative from him but he probably should have taken the long-stride. Chipping in was self-preservation, which is no bad thing.

If Nico hadn’t had gone for the long one and sat for that extra one, it wouldn’t have been an issue – but that’s not how they’ve raced before, is it!? Nico also said his champion mount was “half asleep” – a testament to how easily he found the race.

It looked a mess as Nico went to pick him up and the horse changed his mind and went again. We don’t think the fault could be blamed to either one of them, especially not Nico.

Nico get’s a lot of sh*t, punters often all too quick to dish it out on the basis he doesn’t win on every short-priced horse, but they’re only that way priced for the yard they hail from – not always derived on merit. He is is a very, very good jockey, arguably the most intelligent rider on the planet where more often than not, we know there is nothing else he could have done to either improve the performance of the horse or the education that horse is receiving at the time.

Sometimes, those few standing on their own, away from the crowd and crowing spurious contrarian prose to standout don’t need a like or follow, they need a tap on the shoulder.

CHAMPIONS HURDLE

Whichever way you look at it, CONSTITUTION HILL is the right favourite for the Champion Hurdle and he should win, but that’s not to say the race will be an egg and spoon race.

He will have something think about if BRIGHTERDAYSAHEAD and LOSSIEMOUTH turn up, but add ANZADAM into the mix too, hot from his success in the Grade 3 Limestone Lad Hurdle, and the race is looking a belter.

He looks another smart horse for the Donelly’s. Like CONSTITUTION HILL’s performance, it was an easy win against average horses in behind but visually it was a spectacle.

For as much as he may add some spice to proceedings in March, he may not even turn up. With LOSSIEMOUTH and STATE MAN pencilled in for the Champion Hurdle, Mullins might save this unbeaten five-year-old for Aintree.

Anyway, it’s nice to dream of dream races.

CHELTENHAM TARGETS

Without properly realising it immediately after the day finished, we learned plenty about some potential Festival targets from Cheltenham Trials Day. Obviously, CONSTITUTION HILL was the main one, but Ash Symonds managed to catch a few nice lines about some potential Cheltenham targets. Let’s start with Paul Nicholls. We’re fairly sure the yard are out of form at the moment, so some of the performances across the weekend can be upgraded in regards to the future. STAGE STAR is one. This weekend saw him take on three miles (well, 3m1f) for the first time in his career, and it looked for a while that he was going to beat L’HOMME PRESSE in the Cotswold Chase.

Nicholls is keen on sending him straight to Aintree for the Bowl, and that could go well for him as he wouldn’t have one too many runs by going to Cheltenham. The boss of Ditcheat also has a decision to make regarding MONMIRAL. If we were him, we would run the Cleeve Hurdle runner-up in the Pertemps and allow him to use his class against inferior rivals. He’d get weight from THE WALLPARK as well. James Owen, on the other hand, has no decision to make. It’s straight to the Triumph Hurdle for EAST INDIA DOCK

We have to admit, this was very impressive. His time stacks up better than what CONSTITUTION HILL did, smashing up TERIFERMA and QUANTOCK HILLS by over 30 lengths is good form, and he’s just a very straightforward horse. LULAMBA was nice at Ascot, but at what point do you have to just look at EAST INDIA DOCK and think ‘he's rock solid’? Nice horse and he has a proper chance in March. Finally, one horse who didn’t do his Cheltenham Festival chances any favours was POTTERS CHARM as he was easily beaten by SIXMILEBRIDGE. Now this was a bit weird. Earlier in the week, the team were saying how well he was at home, but in the immediate aftermath, Nigel Twiston-Davies was quick to say “he wasn’t at his full capacity”.

Firstly, that’s poor form from the Twisters. Give the punters a chance and tell them in the lead-up to the race that he’s had a bit of time off so they at least know more information before placing their bets.

Secondly, they clearly made a bit of an error running him, but that’s the wonderful thing of having hindsight. They thought they could run, get away with it, allow their horse to strip fitter for March, and go to the Turners unbeaten. It didn’t happen, but so what, Nige won’t be worried about punters acca’s in the bin - his concern is March.

They’ve got a good amount of time to ready him for a Turners now, and ultimately, these are racehorses who are bred to race. Running him on Trials Day won’t be the reason behind him potentially not winning the Turners. If he doesn’t win, he was never good enough in the first place.

WEEKENDER EYE-CATCHERS

MASACCIO - SATURDAY 12:40 CHELTENHAM

There’s a chance MASACCIO could be a horse for the Coral Gold Cup this year. Alan King has floated up the idea already, notably when finishing second to THE JUKEBOX MAN in the John Francome, but his first run at three miles in the Kauto Star didn’t go too much to plan. He returned to 2m4f on Saturday and ran a good race, but he probably wouldn’t mind returning back to three miles in time. He lost lengths at his jumps due to the speed of the race, but he had enough boot to keep up with the field. He has a nice mark and has a big pot in him.

SNIPE - SATURDAY 15.15 DONCASTER

The Great Yorkshire was a messy race. We sadly lost FORWARD PLAN, a few horses were brought down, and WALKING ON AIR fell at the last when looking like the winner. But, the first three home all looked like well-handicapped horses, and SNIPE looks like one to keep onside going forward. We’re convinced THE CHANGING MAN has a nice pot in him, so finishing behind him despite a mistake at the third-last fence is respectable. He’s a steady improver off 128 and was backed in the morning of the race, so he can continue moving forward.

RISK ON

A no betting day today.

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