Ben Linfoot wonders if Ahoy Senor is being overhyped a little following his Newbury win while he talks Honeysuckle's ambitions and looks ahead to Sandown.
Feeling uneasy about Senor chat
There’s no doubting AHOY SENOR has some engine following his demolition job in the Ladbrokes John Francome Novices’ Chase at Newbury on Saturday and it’s great to see Lucinda Russell - and northern racing - have a potential top notcher. But…
It almost feels deliberately contrary to express concerns about a novice chaser that has just slammed a Grade 2 field by 31 lengths and maybe that is the case here. After all, it was the general reaction to his victory – the comparisons with Denman and Coneygree, the exclamations that he’s a Gold Cup horse in waiting – that didn’t sit quite right afterwards.
If I was to channel my inner Craig Revel Horwood I’d summarise his performance like this: “You galloped them into the ground, darling, but you adjusted right at almost every fence, you were scruffy over the open ditch in the home straight, you swished your tail and plonked yourself over the water jump like you’re a snooker table (copyright Dave Nevison) and you pecked on landing at the 13th. We don’t want another Carlisle, do we? Seven!”
Don’t look at me like that with your panels of 10.
His main rival, Mr Incredible, didn’t jump at all and I just wasn’t as enamoured by this performance as, well, almost everyone else, it seems.
We’ll learn more in the Kauto Star Novices’ Chase at Kempton. Perhaps he can confirm the Grade One Sefton form with Bravemansgame if they clash on the King George card in what could be a humdinger of a novice chase.
He’ll have to almost certainly jump better than he did at Newbury to beat that rival, though, as Paul Nicholls’ horse has been very slick in his two chasing starts so far and if he gets into a rhythm he could be very tough to reel in.
It’s potentially a Christmas cracker of a race to look forward to. And Ahoy Senor looks potentially very good, too. Let’s just calm it down with the ‘how good could he be’ predictions until we’ve seen him jump against a better class of opposition.
*One final thing on Ahoy Senor. He’s by Dylan Thomas. And while the son of Danehill’s stallion fee of €4,000 tells you plenty about his success at stud in terms of overall quality, he has now sired a five-furlong freak in Caspian Prince and a potential top-level three-mile chaser in Ahoy Senor - which isn’t bad when it comes to the versatility scale.
Honeysuckle might have to tackle a fence to gain immortality
HONEYSUCKLE was so good in the BARONERACING.COM Hatton’s Grace Hurdle at Fairyhouse on Sunday that she’s already generally odds-on to retain her Unibet Champion Hurdle crown at Cheltenham next March.
With the Irish Champion Hurdle pencilled in for her next start at the Dublin Racing Festival in February her campaign is mapped out with the Punchestown Festival the likely destination for her post-Cheltenham victory parade.
Now 13 from 13 under Rules, she is looking better and better season by season and inevitably the Dawn Run comparisons are being made once again, this time by Tony Mullins - the regular jockey of the Champion Hurdle and Cheltenham Gold Cup-winning mare.
“I thought she jumped a bit like one who might have been schooled over fences,” Mullins also said on the Nick Luck Daily Podcast.
“She used her back, as opposed to the great Istabraq who let fly at his hurdles like a real hurdler; Istabraq, Sea Pigeon, that type of horse. She used herself like one who would jump a fence.”
A 15-length winner over Annie Mc in her only point-to-point at Dromahane, the prospect of Honeysuckle going over fences has been bubbling away in the background of her career for a while.
Indeed, before she won the Champion Hurdle it was almost set in stone that she would go steeplechasing this season, only for connections to change their minds when it became evident she had such a stranglehold on the two-mile hurdling division.
But, whisper it quietly, does winning a Champion Hurdle really mean what it used to do?
The international and all-weather options for the good Flat horses that might’ve turned their hand to hurdling a few decades ago have weakened this division and most National Hunt-breds seem to be fast-tracked to chasing these days.
Just look at the horses that might have challenged Honeysuckle over two miles from last year’s pool of novice hurdlers – Bob Olinger, Ferny Hollow, Appreciate It. All are going novice chasing and Honeysuckle is left to deal with second-class fields to dispose of, which she is doing brilliantly with the minimum of fuss.
Now seven turning eight, Honeysuckle is still relatively young. But if she has two Champion Hurdle gold medals hanging around her neck next March, sealing 15 wins in a row, it will be difficult to resist attempting to join the Three And You’re In club, currently made up of Hatton’s Grace, Sir Ken, Persian War, See You Then and Istabraq.
Yet if connections truly want to set their sights on all-time great status for Honeysuckle, she might have to go chasing in search of the best opposition. Winning three Champion Hurdles against her current contemporaries might not cut it.
Sandown snippet A: Party Pieces
Paul Nicholls said in the aforementioned NLDP that HITMAN might be sporting a pair of cheekpieces in the Betfair Tingle Creek Chase at Sandown on Saturday.
This immediately raised an eyebrow as he uses the sheepskin accoutrements sparingly first-time out in Grade One chases and I can only find four examples of him unleashing the headgear in such circumstances.
Rolling Aces was pulled up in the 2014 Betfair Ascot Chase, Sam Winner was third in the same year’s Lexus Chase, Silviniaco Conti won the Betfair Chase in cheekpieces first-time up (before winning two further G1s in them) and Clan Des Obeaux is two from two at the top level since the sheepskin was applied.
Hitman has 22lb to find with Chacun Pour Soi on official ratings, but he looks a rapid improver and the drop in trip to a bare two miles – for the first time since he was second in last year’s Henry VIII at this track – could see him improve again.
He travelled strongly at Exeter when second in the Haldon Gold Cup on his reappearance and he jumped nicely too, so the headgear looks like a bid to sharpen him up further for the task in hand.
Admittedly he’ll have a job on to sink a peak-form Chacun, but this could cut up a little more yet and at 14/1 (with Hills) and 12/1 generally, I’m half tempted to take a chance on him with that Nicholls cheekpieces record in mind.
Sandown snippet B: King Edward
As you can see from the graphic, Alan King has a swanky record at Sandown in the month of December with a 33% hit-rate from a fair sample of 36 runners.
Four years ago he won the Close Brothers Henry VIII Novices’ Chase with Sceau Royal and he might well repeat the feat with EDWARDSTONE on Saturday even if he does have a tough task against Dan Skelton’s Third Time Lucki.
One thing in his favour could be the track, as Third Time Lucki has done all of his chasing at Cheltenham thus far and his most disappointing run over hurdles came at right-handed Musselburgh.
Edwardstone was two from two going right-handed over hurdles, including a defeat of Fiddlerontheroof and an easy win at Market Rasen, while I like that he prepared for the Henry VIII with a spin around tough-jumping Warwick.
He jumped nicely there and the quick-fire five fences down the back straight should have readied him nicely for the test the Railway Fences will present this weekend.