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Equinties - Friday night lights
BGP Capital
February 20, 2026
HEADLINE ROUNDUP
WHEN THE DUST SETTLES
What happens after tonight then?
It’s clear Hendo doesn’t have a plan, he can’t have a plan - how could he!? We feel sorry for him because it really is easily the hardest decision he’ll ever have to make as to whether to run him or not in the Champion Hurdle.
Our gut feel is he won’t. There is simply too much to lose should the worst happen. We completely understand why it’s a hard decision though, he’s the best jumps horse in the world and with a clear round in March, he canters in.
But even at a canter there is the risk he falls again. Look at his last jump in the Unibet Hurdle at Cheltenham last Jan… he was HARD on the bridle and nearly stacked it.
Fast or slow, there is a risk he puts in a bad one, even if it is such a rarity. And rarity it is when you look at it through a different lens.
Hendo has maintained he’s a beautiful jumper without error at home. In fact, he calls him the best jumper in the world which allows you to look at the ‘CONSTITUTION HILL problem’ in two ways.
He’s fallen three times out of 14 appearances, that’s a horrendously concerning and dangerous strike rate. That’s what every one is focusing on.
The other side is, of the hundreds of hurdles he’s popped in public and at home, he’s only made four errors. Just four. That’s a bloody good stat when ignoring the fact that three of those errors led to him on the deck.
Sadly, Hendo has to focus on the former data point because the consequences of falling are far too damaging, for both horse and business. Hendo will get a good blow in to CONSTITUTION HILL tonight and that’s all he’ll get because regardless of how he runs, the decision won’t get any easier to make.
MUSSELBURGH MUSINGS
Why are we about to dig into the idiosyncrasies of Musselburgh, we hear you ask?
Well, it’s because two odds on hot pots have been monumentally stuffed this month and their trainers comments have been most interesting.
In Sevenbarrows’ yard tour yesterday Hendo called Musselburgh a ‘bizarre track’ in response to his hot fave FANTASY WORLD’s defeat, and we were wondering what he meant, especially given his 1 in 3 strike rate up there, but maybe he couldn’t even comprehend FNATASY WORLD losing?
To be fair, Nicholls once said Musselburgh ‘suits a certain type of horse’ perhaps suggesting the track might be unforgiving is a horse lacks speed, agility and… nimbleness, we think that’s a word.
When Harry Derham’s MOSSY FEN ROAD got stuffed there a few weeks back, we couldn’t believe it. Luckily he was waaay too short to back, but given how good he was at Chepstow (a performance which put him in the Supreme picture) it was a result from racing which almost made you want to pack the sport in altogether.
Don’t get us wrong, the winner is a good horse but MOSSY FEN ROAD should have won on the bridle. So was it the track that beat him?
Reading Derham’s comments on ‘his best novice’, you’d think that might be the case.
Musselburgh is a thin oval, the turns either end are sharp and tight. The conditions are rarely slow, in fact most of the time Musselburgh is quick (we have no evidence of that but we have watched enough racing to know that).
Derham said ‘Chepstow was what he’s all about’ and that the big galloping nature of the track (like Cheltenham) was more his cup of tea.
Like Hendo, Derham has told us to forget the last run but can you? Will you be with or against FANTASY WORLD and MOSSY FEN ROAD next time they run?
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