Racing opinion: Is the Mares' Hurdle the right race for Honeysuckle?
Champion a lesser spectacle now
No, I can’t accept this is the ‘right call’ unfortunately. I’ve never owned a racehorse so I’m possibly going to come across a little insensitive here, but I’m not sure I appreciate some of the rhetoric around this nine-year-old mare with 18 career starts to her name.
Once connections start using phrases such as ‘wishing to mind her’ and seemingly plotting how she can end her racing career on some sort of high, then it defeats the object of top-class competition. She’s fit to race, or she isn’t. And while the Close Brothers Mares’ Hurdle carries Grade 1 status, the Champion Hurdle it is not. It’s not like she’s been failing to finish either, she can evidently still be competitive and that’s the key.
She won the Unibet Champion Hurdle easily in 2021 and followed up last March. She’s probably past her peak now and they’re looking at it and thinking they can’t possibly beat State Man this spring, let alone Constitution Hill, but you really need champions past to take on the present stars and I don’t care how much people are now looking forward to a quality-looking edition of the Mares’ Hurdle, the day one championship race at the Festival will be a lesser spectacle for Honeysuckle not being part of it. Matt Brocklebank
Irish Champion proved she's no longer best in the division
A clash between Honeysuckle and Constitution Hill at last season's Punchestown Festival would have been a captivating contest - the unbeaten dual Champion Hurdle winner against the up-and-comer who had posted the best performance by a novice hurdler in Timeform's history in the Supreme. However, a lot of water has passed under the bridge since last spring.
Two wide-margin wins in the Fighting Fifth and Christmas Hurdle have cemented the view that Constitution Hill is an extraordinarily talented two-miler, while two defeats for Honeysuckle have shown that she's no longer the force of old - something her owner, Kenny Alexander, acknowledged post-race.
The nine-year-old's two performances this season have, according to Timeform, been around a stone inferior to what she produced at her peak two seasons ago, and there seemed to very little excuse for her defeat behind State Man in the Irish Champion Hurdle on Sunday. She was typically brave, sticking to her task to hold onto second, but the writing was on the wall soon after turning in, and it's difficult to see how she could reverse that comprehensive four-and-three-quarter-length defeat with State Man, never mind cope with Constitution Hill.
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Sunday's race showed that she's no longer the best in the division - and I don't think further confirmation is required in the Champion Hurdle, especially not when her presence adds so much to the Mares' Hurdle.
It's understandable that connections want her to bow out on a high at Cheltenham and she clearly has a much better chance in the Mares' than the Champion, but it is not a penalty kick with some smart and improving rivals in opposition, and it will be fascinating to see whether she can sign off with a win. That fascination is no longer there, for me anyway, when it comes to how she might fare in the Champion Hurdle. Tony McFadden
Right call - but should it be allowed?
If I were Henry De Bromhead and Kenny Alexander with the current situation they are in I’d run her in the Close Brothers Mares’ Hurdle as well. She has been usurped in the Champion Hurdle division by State Man and Constitution Hill and her best chance of Cheltenham glory is undoubtedly in the Mares’.
But should she even be allowed to run in it? It just so happens this year that a 160-rated mare like Honeysuckle isn’t granted a penalty kick with 150+ rated opposition like Epatante and potentially Marie’s Rock in against her.
But it won’t always be like that. In some years you could have a 160-rated mare lining up with 20lb in hand and that’s not the sort of spectacle the Cheltenham Festival would want to encourage. This should be a warning sign. Making it a Grade 2 with a 150 ratings cap is an option. So is having an open Grade 3 handicap – if the good ones want to carry the weight then so be it.
And if you want your Grade 1 recognition go in the Champion Hurdle or the Stayers’ with the mares’ allowance, the competition would be healthier all round.
As for Honeysuckle, she has been a wonderful racemare and a second career as a broodmare awaits. But I’d have loved to have seen her over a fence. Ben Linfoot
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