How many runners will there be in the Champion Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival?
What’s the Champion Hurdle story you like to tell? The I was there – or I was on – moment that manifests itself as clear as day when that first drop of the black stuff meets your lips the Monday of Cheltenham week.
We'll all have them - it'll be Dawn Run for some lucky souls with long enough memories, or maybe See You Then hot on her heels in the mid-1980s. There was a glint in Niall Hannity's eye when talking of 1990 winner Kribensis on this week's Get Stuck In - it's hard to miss.
For others it might be Rooster Booster and his rise from County to Champion in 2002-03. The recent passing of Hardy Eustace brought back very fond memories of not only him but of Brave Inca, Macs Joy and the magnificent monkey that is Harchibald (still going strong at 25, you'll be pleased to hear).
Maybe some readers backed Sublimity at huge prices in 2007, or kept the faith with Alan King and his plucky five-year-old Katchit the following season. Hurricane Fly, Faugheen and Annie Power are hard to forget for team Mullins, so too the mumblings from the knowledgeable hoards as Binocular - deemed a non-runner less than a month beforehand - returned victorious to beat local hero Khyber Kim in 2010.
It’ll probably always be Istabraq for me. Although, in typical fashion, yours truly was only physically present for one of Istabraq’s memorable Festival performances, and that was his final appearance when pulled-up by Charlie Swan in front of the packed stands in his belated attempt to win the Tuesday highlight for a fourth time in a row. The 2001 edition which was, incidentally - the Law of Sod demands it - supposed to be my first trip to the meeting, had been lost due to the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.
There were 14 horses there to take on Istabraq – now considered Timeform’s joint-second best hurdler of all time – in the Cotswolds that day in 2002. Aidan O’Brien’s star had beaten the eventual winner Hors La Loi II, and 10 others, by four lengths in the year 2000; he’d readily seen off 13 rivals in ’99, and dispatched 17 rivals by 12 lengths and up in ’98.
There's no denying the size and strength of those Champion Hurdle fields contributed greatly to making Istabraq’s successes so noteworthy, not only to the racing data analysts but the wider paying public too. Seeing him skip past Blue Royal on the bridle at the final flight before burning up the run-in well clear of a hard-fought battle for second left not a single onlooker in any doubt as to what they were witnessing.
Roll on the thick end of a quarter of a century and what chance does Constitution Hill really have of reaching the same corners of our sport-loving country’s collective consciousness? A veteran of just one Champion so far, this clearly brilliant gelding already sits just 3lb shy of Istabraq on Timeform’s greatest hit-parade, but with just one legitimate challenger - and one he's comfortably seen off before - in State Man, his legs appear tied when it comes to climbing the ladder any further.
After this week's Unibet Champion Hurdle forfeit stage saw Impaire Et Passe, Bob Olinger, Vauban and Burdett Road all officially scratched from the 2024 renewal, just 18 remain and it doesn’t take a die hard Festival-goer to work out that at least a dozen of those are highly doubtful starters, even with five weeks to go.
Hughie Morrison has sent out an admirable rallying cry regarding 12-year-old warrior Not So Sleepy, Kerry Lee is on the fence with Nemean Lion, who also has a Stayers' Hurdle entry but is just as likely to run in the Coral Cup, while connections of Lossiemouth have simply asked 'why finish third in a Champion when you can win a Mares’ Hurdle?’, and maybe it's not them we should blame. Gala Marceau, Love Envoi and Luccia might lie in wait there, with the other two mares Echoes In Rain and Under Control beginning to look like long-term County Hurdle projects more than anything else.
Guard Your Dreams – officially rated just 140 – might have missed the cut for a County or Coral Cup at one time but could conceivably end up as Nigel Twiston-Davies’ madcap swing in the big one, with State Man’s stablemate Zarak The Brave and Gordon Elliott’s Pied Piper – who returned to the yard following the Caldwell Construction dispersal - potentially making up a field of six.
Six runners, max? A new low after a field of seven represented the smallest final declaration since the turn of the century just last March.
I’ve long been of the opinion that I’d sooner marvel at a couple of high-class cruisers over a dozen moderate bruisers any day of the week, but there has been a systematic fault when it comes to the two-mile hurdling division for several years now, due to a myriad of factors some of which were touched upon in a reflective piece by Timeform’s Jumps Editor Dan Barber
Heaven forbid anything should happen to either of these British and Irish aces in the next few weeks as behind them the cupboards are completely bare. And it's hard to see where the decline in numbers will stop, never mind begin to rise again. Are we really sleepwalking towards a first walkover in a championship race at the Festival?
I won’t be at Cheltenham on Champion Hurdle day this year, but over 60,000 jumps fans thirsty for top-level, competitive sport will be and right now there have to be major concerns over what story they will be telling when those final glasses are being raised on the Tuesday evening.
- Racecards
- Fast results
- Full results and free video replays
- Horse racing news
- Horse racing tips
- Horse racing features
- Download our free iOS and Android app
- Football and other sports tips
- Podcasts and video content
Safer gambling
We are committed in our support of safer gambling. Recommended bets are advised to over-18s and we strongly encourage readers to wager only what they can afford to lose.
If you are concerned about your gambling, please call the National Gambling Helpline / GamCare on 0808 8020 133.
Further support and information can be found at begambleaware.org and gamblingtherapy.org.
