Equinties - the poniros rule

Gm Equinauts

One week until we’re on the road heading to HQ and the weather forecast looks brilliant.

It’s like the Christmas countdown come early.

Let’s dive in.

HEADLINE ROUNDUP

THE PONIROS RULE

You’ve heard of the STATE MAN rule, right?

For those of you who may be a bit confused, in 2022, STATE MAN dotted up in the County Hurdle as a novice off a mark of 141 after three previous runs over hurdles, one of which was in France. His three runs included a second on debut at Auteuil, a Leopardstown maiden hurdle where he fell at the second-last at odds of 8/13, and a Limerick maiden hurdle success at odds of 1/7.

The Joe Donnelly-owned Doctor Dino gelding then rocked up to the Festival and absolutely gagged up off 141. To put that mark into context, he has now won 12 Grade 1s (one of which was the Champion Hurdle) and he holds a rating of 167. He was probably “well-handicapped” that day at the Festival, we think.

Anyway, shortly after this success, the BHA brought in a rule that required horses to have four previous hurdle runs in order to run in a non-novice handicap hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival, which was eventually upped to five for the 2025 Festival.

The first change of the rule was quickly labelled ‘the STATE MAN rule’, and now, we could have a PONIROS rule. Yesterday, the BHA came out with a few rule tweaks ahead of the jumps season proper beginning, and two of which were quite interesting.

The first thing that we’ll talk about is the rule that prevents horses from running in Grade 1 novices’ and juvenile hurdles if they have yet to perform to a rating of at least 110. For many Grade 1 novice and juvenile hurdles, that is no problem, but this will cause a bit of pain in the mind of Willie Mullins.

Why? Well, cast your mind back to last season’s Grade 1 Triumph Hurdle, and the boss of Closutton ran three horses in the race that had yet to even compete in a hurdle race under rules. One of these horses was PONIROS, who won the race and is now rated 149. Essentially, Mullins was running these super-unexposed juveniles in the race so they could get another run under the belt for the following jumps season, meaning they’d need to race one less time over hurdles to get qualified for a Festival handicap. It was pretty intelligent from Mullins, in fairness.

Well, that’s going to stop now. We say this, but Mullins will find a way around this, and the way will probably mean keeping these horses in Ireland to run in similar Grade 1 juvenile hurdle contests at Punchestown and the DRF.

The second point to note is that the BHA have removed a tonne of Class 3 Novices’ Handicap Chases from the calendar in favour of new ‘Chasing Excellence’ (cringe name) Beginner/Novices’ Chases. We’re not really that bothered by this. The likes of Nicky Henderson and Dan Skelton have been screaming for seasons that they have nowhere to run their good novice chasers at the start of the season, so it seems like the BHA has taken a leaf out of the HRI/IHRB book and booked a load more beginner chases instead of these novices’ handicap chases.

That’s fine. We hope you are all ready for countless ex-Graded novice hurdlers going off as the 1/3 favourite in four-runner fields around Warwick, Chepstow, Wincanton, and Sandown! Let’s not forget that the opening novices’ handicap chase on Persian War Weekend at Chepstow has produced CHIANTI CLASSICO (Ultima winner) and HAITI COLEURS (Irish Nash winner) over the last two seasons.

RIGHTFUL PLACE

Log onto X at the moment, and you’ll see the jumps chat is rife! To be honest, fair enough. The Leger is out of the way, the ground is getting slower, and the vibes are getting stronger.

However, at the end of last month, a few rumours were floating around that JONBON could be targeted towards the King George VI Chase at Christmas. This theory has been around for a few seasons now, and we don’t really know why. Maybe it’s because he won a three-mile PtP, and the fact that he has won the last two renewals of the Grade 1 Melling Chase (2m4f), but it’s not just the jumps fans that are fueling the fire – Nicky and Nico are doing their fair share as well.

To be honest, we don’t see the case. As things stand, he mops up Grade 1 two-mile events for fun, right up until Cheltenham, when he seems to throw in a race-ending mistake. Races like the Shloer (Grade 2), Tingle Creek, and Clarence House are right up his street, and that’s why he has nearly £1.4 million in spare change to his name. He should be considered the king of these races until horses like KALIF DU BERLAIS and L’EAU DU SUD decide to challenge him properly.

Yes, maybe we could see a future where Nicky Henderson has a look at the Ryanair Chase instead of the Champion Chase at Cheltenham because, in theory, a longer race should allow him to settle into a better rhythm at his fences, rather than going around at a million miles an hour and smashing into the roots of one.

Anyway, we digress. It seems like any potential plans to go down the King George route with him have been shelved, as reports suggest the usual two-mile route of Shloer Chase before the Tingle Creek is the main objective.

This is a positive. This suggests that his preliminary work at home is one of his usual two-mile speedy self. There’s an argument to suggest that if they were ever to think of the King George, maybe next season as a 10-year-old, it would be because he’s lost a yard of speed. We shall see, though.

RUMOUR MILL

Our third and final piece for this newsletter is another jumps-related article. Yes, we’ve gone for the hat-trick. The Flat season is on the way out. We’ll wave good bye to it next Saturday…about 14.25 ;)

As things stand, IL EST FRANCAIS is registered to Tom George, and he is based at his yard in Stroud. He was registered on the BHA website as being with Noel’s father on July 25th, which is very nearly two months. Interesting stuff.

Why? Well, Noel George, his “former” part-trainer, told the Racing Post: "Il Est Francais is very well and at the moment he is with my father, having passed the summer at home with Richard Kelvin-Hughes. At this point there's been no discussion with his owners as to what the plan is, but I don't think he'll run in France this side of the King George.

"The exact path he takes and where he is trained is yet to be decided. It's not certain whether he'll come back to us, but if he's with my father, we're all one team.”
What are the main takeaways from these quotes? He won’t run in France before the King George, the path to Kempton is undecided, and it’s not certain that he will head back to Noel George & Amanda Zetterholm. Those are three pretty big points.
The last one is the one we’re most intrigued by. Why would IL EST FRANCAIS, a potential King George winner, stay with Tom George, no matter if they are all “one team”? Tom George has had three runners since April 2025, and he had just 47 runners last season, which is a stark difference from the 377 runners he sent out in the 2018-19 season.

Yes, Tom officially had IL EST FRANCAIS in 2022, but he hasn’t trained a Graded winner in the UK since February 2021, and his last UK Grade 1 was THE WORLDS END in the 2019 Long Walk Hurdle. It is all a bit smoke and mirrors currently. One thing we will say is that the rumour mill is turning regarding IL EST FRANCAIS.

An account or two has alluded to it on Racing X, notably one big jumps-related news account that “can very much see a world where Il Est Francais moves trainer about an hour or so north of Tom George”, but no official name has been mentioned so far.
IL EST FRANCAIS is co-owned by Nicolas de Lageneste (his French breeder) and Richard and Lizze Kelvin-Hughes. Who have the Kelvin-Hughes’ had high-profile horses with before?

The main ones to think about are Nicky Henderson, Alan King, and Dan Skelton. The former could be an option (they had SANTINI with Hendo), Kingy probably wouldn’t be on the shortlist, and the owners did have MY DROGO with Skelton before his setback. The rumours are that it could be Skelton that benefits from IL EST FRANCAIS, but nothing is confirmed, and it is all speculation at this stage.

RISK ON

We’ve delayed getting this newsletter out as we really thought we’d be able to find a bet at Newbury today but we can’t. We’re going and instead we’ll just play the standout stat horse for small stakes at 12’s.

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