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Equinties - champ on the champ
BGP Capital
February 05, 2026
Gm, Equinauts
There’s a lovely pub in Berkshire, not too far from Lambourn that it’s a pain to get to but quite clearly a distance enough away from racing circles that Oisin can enjoy some privacy. Ironic then that we’re writing this. It’s the newsletter HQ’s local and it hosted Oisin and Rob Hornby with a few friends last night after their morning work at Sevenbarrows.
From the Alps, our current location of writing, we managed to get a question answered. This is legit. We asked simply what he felt like.
‘A good thing’.
That’s a pretty powerful powerful response from the champion jockey who knows his way around rockets as well as any Space X engineer.
Let’s dive in.
HEADLINE ROUNDUP
HE COULDN’T, COULD HE?
What’s the optimal preparation for a Champion Hurdle? A 1m4f Southwell maiden, you say?
As we all know, that’s the race that CONSTITUTION HILL is going to run in next, and Nicky Henderson has confirmed that Oisin Murphy will ride him later this month.
There’s been a fair bit of chat about this online (obviously), and in recent days, there’s been talk about why is he running in this Southwell race with a view to the Champion Hurdle? It seems like he has a great chance of running in the Champion Hurdle next month, according to his trainer, who said: “He was schooling with Yogi on Monday. His jumping was great, and we're going to do it again on Friday. He's schooled with Yogi and done the starting stalls and a gallop with Oisin, and Nico [de Boinville] will come back in and ride him when Yogi's back here on Friday. He's had an entertaining week and it keeps him amused."
Running him at Southwell really isn’t that much of an issue and we don’t know why some are getting so worked up about it. It’s a good bit of work which keeps his options open whilst in the meantime him and Yogi can go to school.
Oisin will pilot him at Southwell, and then it seems like full steam ahead to the Champion Hurdle, a race that has really fallen apart in recent weeks.
It’s actually fallen apart so much that CON HILL is 5/1 for the race with a record of FFPUF from his last four runs. Madness!
He clearly has the ability and impressed Oisin who is one of the best judges of a horse there is, it’s all down to Yogi now to see if he can get CH still string a clear round together.
If he stands, he wins.
DECISIONS DECISIONS
On Road To Cheltenham on Sunday night, Ruby Walsh, the very highly-regarded pundit, suggested that TALK THE TALK would almost be a certainty if he ran in the Turners rather than the Supreme. His reasoning? They went slow in the DRF early, and that’s why would be similar in the Turners compared to the rapid speed they’d go in a Supreme.
The slowness of the race helped his jumping on the weekend, and a really fast Supreme could put his jumping under stress because he isn’t potentially the soundest jumper in the word.
It’s a good argument, and one that Joseph O’Brien can see, as he said: "He's entered in the Supreme and the Turners, but the overwhelming likelihood is that he'll run in the Supreme. That's the plan at the moment anyway.
"I can certainly see the case for the Turners, and he'd have no problem seeing out the trip in that, but my gut feeling is that we'll keep him to two miles for now and go for the Supreme."
Despite the positives about going for a Turners, the Supreme does seem likely, and we understand why. Yes, he does have a tendency to put in a bad jump here and there, but what’s the one thing he did so well at the DRF? He sat right off the pace and showed an incredible turn of foot to win.
In a Supreme where they go hard early, that’s what he’d be expected to do, and one would imagine he’d be a touch closer to the pace as they purposely sat him right off at the DRF.
We think he could go well in either race, but he has so much speed, a Supreme has to be the one, surely? He has a great chance in the contest, and he could be a bit special going forwards.
A MULLINS HANDICAPPER?
It’s slightly frustrating that Willie Mullins hasn’t got five runs into TOO BOSSY FOR US, as he looked like a type who could be perfect for the County Hurdle yesterday at Punchestown.
He ran him in the Triumph Hurdle and Grade 1 4YO Hurdle at Punchestown last year, which made us think that he was getting the required runs in early ahead of a potential handicap plot this season, but with just three on the record, it will be near impossible to get him qualified for the Cheltenham Festival handicaps this season.
Still, he was quite impressive yesterday, and he has plenty of scope to improve over hurdles. But, will this be the main aim with the horse? We think not.
Based on his interview on Racing TV yesterday, Mullins seems keen to get him qualified for the Melbourne Cup, and considering he is rated in the low 90s on the Flat, we think the way he’ll try to do this is Royal Ascot and then the Ebor, a route he used for ETHICAL DIAMOND last season before winning at the Breeders’ Cup. He was a pretty sharp horse with Kevin Philippart de Foy in 2024, and his ability is still there for Mullins, it’s just about finding the right days for him.
Those ‘days’ could well see him have one pop at a handicap hurdle at Aintree/Punchestown before these big Flat handicaps in the summer, and that does sound exciting for a pretty decent horse. There’s a twinkle in Mullins’ eye about this fella, and you could be hearing a bit more about him this year.
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