Lossiemouth earned a career-high Timeform rating of 161 when winning the Unibet Champion Hurdle.
Willie Mullins’ star, Lossiemouth, was winning at her fourth successive Cheltenham Festival following victories in the 2023 JCB Triumph Hurdle and the last two renewals of the Close Brothers Mares’ Hurdle.
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Timeform’s Jumps Editor Dan Barber said: “It was a significant performance, but not necessarily in terms of what she achieved on ratings.
“161 is below Honeysuckle's peak in the mid-160s, and it's definitely below Annie Power, who was a 170 plus mare in her prime.
"But it's historic in terms of four Festival wins now. It's not a rarity nowadays for horses to come back to Cheltenham and win multiple ones. Quevega is still leading the way, of course, but four is some shift and great, I think, for the race, and just for the sport really, that this time around it was in a Champion Hurdle.
“It’s the race that everybody really has been craving for her to run in, in the years when she's been dominating the mares' scene. So that was a really feel-good moment, seeing her get that open Grade One win that she so deserved at the meeting.”
Of the placed horses, Barber added: “Brighterdaysahead has been beaten again at Cheltenham, but probably ran her best race in terms of form and I definitely would go again with The New Lion in a top two-mile race.
“He’s had a light campaign this year, falling on his first start, and I felt there was an element of that in the tactics today. Harry (Skelton) had him very wide, I think possibly to get a sight of his flights, but he jumped great.
“But he was always getting edged wide, edged wide into the straight, and by that point Lossiemouth had gone.
“You can’t give horses like her a start. It’s a game of inches at the best of times, but when you've got a mare of her quality you're giving seven pounds to, she was away and gone into the straight and he battled on as well as he could to try and close down the second.”
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