Champion Hurdle preview: Is Constitution Hill ready to make history
Constitution Hill puts his unbeaten record on the line in the Unibet Champion Hurdle. His performance in the Sky Bet Supreme of 2022 was so good he was officially the highest-rated novice hurdler in the firm's history.
Now it's Night Nurse's status as the top two-mile hurdler of all time that's under threat.
“He does look like a once in a generation talent. I’m probably showing my age here but he reminds me of Bob Beamon at the 1968 Olympics," Turner mused.
“People still talk about a 'Beamon moment' in sport, he jumped so far it was beyond the measuring equipment and they had to get another tape measure out. It was the longest jump in history, still one of the longest even now.
“There were things in his favour, he was at altitude for example, and there were for Constitution Hill in last year’s Sky Bet Supreme. He had two elite pacemakers if you like in Jonbon and Dysart Dynamo, it was all set up to post a huge rating but part of the reason we were quick to flag up at Timeform that this was the highest rating ever posted by a novice hurdler is because it doesn’t happen every time and this was as good as it looked.
“The reason people talk about Golden Cygnet all these years later is because at the time we said ‘whoa, we’ve never seen that before’ and it’s the same with Constitution Hill. He’s hugely exciting. I have a picture on my wall at home of Night Nurse, he’s still our highest rated hurdler of all time on 182, and I kind of want him to hang on to the crown, but it wouldn’t be in the least bit surprising if Constitution Hill went on to post figures beyond that and become the jumps equivalent of, say, Frankel."
The one thing Nicky Henderson's star doesn't have - possibly with the exception of State Man - is the supporting case to help push him on and on.
“Part of the reason Night Nurse posted such huge figures is he was around in an era which had top, top horses. The problem Constitution Hill has is it’s a much thinner division," Turner said.
“Look back at that vintage Sky Bet Supreme of 2016, a plethora of subsequent Grade One winners emerged from it, the third horse home was Buveur d’Air and he went on to win two Champion Hurdles. The two best horses in the race, though, Altior and Min, were sent straight chasing and that’s what has tended to happen since with similar talents Henderson has had through his hands in the likes of Simonsig, Sprinter Sacre and Shishkin.
“Ability wise they could probably have been Champion Hurdlers. Faugheen is the closest we’ve had in modern times to putting up the sort of ratings Constitution Hill has been posting and he would have probably gone chasing himself had the owner not had Vautour come along, and he wanted to keep them apart.
“I understand why connections are doing it. If you buy an embryonic chaser, the chances of maximising their potential is to go chasing straight away. But in the past, nine times out of ten, if you had a winner of the Supreme or Sun Alliance you’d see if you had a Champion Hurdle horse on your hands first.
“Of course there aren’t the same number of high-end Flat horses being attracted to jumping either. They are being kept for the all-weather or more commonly sold overseas, but the likes of Sea Pigeon were sent hurdling in that Night Nurse era. See You Then was a good Flat horse too and those types aren’t coming now.
“As a result the division is thinner. We were mocked for Honeysuckle’s rating being so low, exaggerated by her mares’ allowance, for example, but there weren’t the horses against her to take it higher. In contrast, the ratings for the two-mile chase division are much higher than they would have been in the 1970s. Tingle Creek, for example, was a very exciting horse but he actually wasn’t an exceptional one in terms of talent - he had longevity and an exciting style of racing but every time he came up against a very good one it would beat him.
“With probably the exception of Crisp the two-milers of that era were nothing compared to the modern horses and that’s the reason why one division is so much stronger at the cost of another one right now."
Turner also feels the race programme is an issue at the elite level.
“Honeysuckle and Epatante should be running in this year’s Champion – they’ve won the last three renewals between them – but I understand why they’re not. If you own them you’re looking for the best winning opportunity but purely from a competition perspective, they would have made the Champion more competitive for that little bit longer to draw out bigger performances from Constitution Hill and State Man," he said.
“It’s not up up to connections to be sporting, though, it’s a case of not giving them the option of going elsewhere.
“Look at Sea Pigeon going into the 1980 Champion Hurdle. He’d met Monksfield six times and lost on all six occasions. Everyone who remembers that era knows it was closer than that head-to-head record would suggest but there was never any suggestion he wouldn’t take him on again. They were always going to take him on. Nowadays one or two defeats and they go elsewhere for races that weren’t there in the past."
Turner feels there are some similarities between the current hurdling superstar and the former great who is still at the top of the division's rankings and on his living room wall.
“There are elements of Night Nurse. We always remember him as the really game, durable, battler coming back for more, but if you think back to 1975-76 when he might not have run to his peak figure, he was all about brilliance," he said.
“He won the top race in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales when that meant something. In his Fighting Fifth he didn’t come off the bridle and beat Comedy Of Errors and Sea Pigeon.
“Compare that with what Constitution Hill had to beat this year, but they did it in a similar way. Night Nurse always made the running and would breeze clear from two or three out and make it look very easy. There are some similarities there, but Constitution Hill just looks freakishly good, he can press the button at any time and go.
“There looks to loads of stamina in the mix too, it’s not pure speed, he’s so strong at the end of the race and that’s a feature of all the good horses in recent years, they really run through the line with loads more left."
State Man has emerged as the main rival to the favourite with an unbeaten campaign in Ireland culminating with victory in the Irish Champion Hurdle at the Dublin Racing Festival.
So is he, or the potential tactical nature of the race, the biggest threat?
“In a normal era you’d be getting really excited about State Man being a top horse but on everything we’ve seen so far Constitution Hill is a once-in-a-generation talent. Let’s just hope he wins the race. I don’t want to get bogged down in ratings, to post a big number you need good horses to push you on, if they really want to drive him out to the line he might post a big performance on the clock too but connections will just want to win the race," Turner said.
“It could cut up and be a really small field. The Mullins team represent different connections but he might have two or three in it and might try and mix it up that way but Constitution Hill really made his own running at Newcastle and it didn’t faze him at all.
“I hope it doesn’t come down to tactics, just who’s the quickest horse on the day, and we think it’s going to be Constitution Hill."
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