Ahead of Constitution Hill's long-awaited Flat debut next week, John Ingles looks at some other hurdlers who switched codes.
Next Friday night, Southwell will (pending the ballot, of course) welcome its biggest equine celebrity since City of Troy galloped on the tapeta in preparation for the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
Constitution Hill’s mission is very different, his Flat debut having the aim of rebuilding his career, and his confidence, without any obstacles to get in his way ahead of a possible bid to reclaim his Unibet Champion Hurdle title which he won so brilliantly in 2023 but now seems a rather distant memory.
Historically, there has been a close connection between the Flat and the Champion Hurdle. Many a Champion Hurdle winner has begun his career on the Flat – Sea Pigeon, Istabraq and Hurricane Fly to name but three of the best. But while Flat-bred horses with the right set of attributes can become Champion Hurdlers, Constitution Hill’s challenge at Southwell will be to prove that a jumps-bred Champion Hurdler has the speed to be competitive on the Flat. That might not prove so straightforward.
‘Historically’ because Champion Hurdle winners tend to be a different breed nowadays. You have to go back to 2013, when Hurricane Fly won the race for a second time, to find the last Champion Hurdler who had begun his career on the Flat. The ten different winners since him have all had jumping backgrounds, with Constitution Hill, in common with Faugheen and Honeysuckle, starting out in an Irish point.
The last Champion Hurdle winner to have run on the Flat at all was Jezki, well before his big win at Cheltenham in 2014. He’d had three runs in bumpers before a pipe-opener in a maiden at Navan, finishing fifth, ahead of switching to hurdles the following season.
What does the pedigree say?
On his dam's side, at least, Constitution Hill’s pedigree offers no Flat clues, his being a jumping family through and through. Both his dam Queen of The Stage and grandam Supreme du Casse were winners over hurdles. But if Constitution Hill’s try on the Flat is out of the ordinary for a horse who began his career in an Irish point, his sire Blue Bresil’s racing career in France was unorthodox too – after all, how many Arc runners have ended up over hurdles?
Blue Bresil – who died at the age of 20 in December just weeks after Constitution Hill’s last run in the Fighting Fifth Hurdle – was really only listed level on the Flat so was predictably outclassed in the Arc, just as he had been earlier that year in the Prix du Jockey Club. But even though he didn’t win over hurdles, he was better in that sphere and showed smart form in some of the top juvenile contests at Auteuil, including finishing second to Long Run who would later win a Cheltenham Gold Cup with Nicky Henderson.
Blue Bresil has had only a handful of runners on all-weather tracks in Britain and no winners, with the best performance among them earning a Timeform rating of just 58. That’s a small sample, though, and none of those horses were remotely in Constitution Hill’s league as hurdlers.
Form is temporary...
But if Constitution Hill isn’t bred to excel on the Flat, will his ‘class’ over hurdles be enough see him through? If his connections are looking for encouragement on that score, they could get some inspiration from the career of the 1991 Champion Hurdle winner Morley Street, trained by Toby Balding.
Morley Street was very much a jumper on breeding too, being a son of the multiple champion jumps sire of that era Deep Run (who also sired Constitution Hill’s great great grandam). Morley Street started off winning two of his three starts in bumpers and then won seven of his first eleven starts over hurdles, notably the 1990 Aintree Hurdle which was to be the first of his four wins in that race.
His target that autumn was the Breeders’ Cup Steeplechase over the small American brush fences and, with no suitable race over jumps to run in beforehand, Morley Street made his Flat debut a fortnight before his run at Belmont in a two-mile conditions race at Goodwood. Sent off at 10/1, Morley Street pulled off something of a shock in beating the favourite, the previous season’s St Leger winner Michelozzo, by a head.
While Morley Street went on to win in America, he didn’t take to ‘proper’ fences later that season despite being very much a chaser on looks, but proved better than ever back over hurdles, winning his Champion Hurdle that season and earning a Timeform rating of 174, only 3 lb behind Constitution Hill’s peak figure. Before winning the Breeders’ Cup Steeplechase again in 1991, Morley Street had two more runs on the Flat, notably in the Doncaster Cup in which he was beaten a short head at 33/1. Timeform’s view was that he would have won had he been ridden with more enterprise but that was still his best run on the Flat, earning a smart rating of 111+.
Morley Street had further prep runs on the Flat in the autumn before his next two hurdling campaigns and in 1992 registered his second Flat win in a conditions race at Doncaster. He ended up becoming unreliable over hurdles, earning the Timeform ‘squiggle’, and at the age of ten was belatedly given a fuller Flat campaign in some high-profile staying races. He finished well beaten in the Sagaro Stakes, Gold Cup and Ebor but fared much better in the Northumberland Plate when finishing a close fourth at 40/1.
Morley Street wasn’t the only Champion Hurdle winner to finish down the field in the 1994 Sagaro Stakes. That was the last of six races on the Flat contested by the mare Flakey Dove who had won the Champion Hurdle the previous month. Like Morley Street, she started off successfully in bumpers before taking well to hurdles. At the age of seven, Flakey Dove got off at the mark on the Flat at the fourth attempt when winning a maiden at Nottingham in the autumn prior to her Champion Hurdle-winning campaign. Her other win on the Flat came in a conditions race at Haydock in between her Champion Hurdle victory and her run in the Sagaro.
Brave decisions to be made
More recently, there have been a couple of examples of horses who began their careers in bumpers and then hurdles before going on to greater things on the Flat, both of them trained by Willie Mullins.
The winner of three bumpers, Wicklow Brave had also won a County Hurdle by the time his attentions were switched to the Flat. Aged six, he won his first two starts on the Flat, a maiden at Gowran and an amateur riders’ race at Listowel, before proving his versatility by winning on the Flat and over both hurdles and fences in subsequent seasons.
Wicklow Brave’s biggest win on the Flat came under a textbook ride from the front under Frankie Dettori to win a four-runner Irish St Leger in 2016, earning a Timeform rating of 119. The following spring he won at the top level over hurdles too in the Punchestown Champion Hurdle under another enterprising ride, this time from Patrick Mullins. Wicklow Brave’s conversion from a hurdler to a Flat performer wasn’t too much of a stretch on pedigree as he was bred for the Flat to start with, from a Juddmonte family with his grandam a Group 3 winner in France.
Stablemate True Self might not have won at the highest grade over hurdles or on the Flat, but her development from a barely useful handicap hurdler into a smart performer on the level was remarkable as well as lucrative. True Self won two bumpers for Mullins and twice over hurdles, including a handicap at the Punchestown Festival in 2018. But from the autumn of that year, she made a permanent switch to the Flat which included running up a hat-trick in listed races and then achieving international success. Two wins in Australia in the Queen Elizabeth Stakes, a Group 3 handicap at Flemington, as well as victory at the age of eight in the Neom Turf Cup on the Saudi Cup card in 2021, took her career earnings to just shy of £900,000.
It’s hard to know what to expect from Constitution Hill on Friday. In part, that will be down to him but will also depend on the strength of opposition he faces. Presumably a win would book him a place in the Champion Hurdle in the short term and, who knows, maybe open the door to further opportunities on the Flat.
But while the knives are no doubt already being sharpened on social media, it would be unwise to judge him too harshly if he's beaten – a longer trip on turf would surely suit him better than a mile and a half on the all-weather.
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