Michael Buckley admits to being 'heartbroken' after making the decision alongside trainer Nicky Henderson to swerve the Unibet Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham with Constitution Hill.
Buckley was agonising over the situation he found himself in following his star horse's stunning Flat debut win at Southwell last Friday, which came following three falls in his past four starts over hurdles.
After much deliberation, the news broke on Wednesday afternoon that the nine-year-old son of Blue Bresil would not be taking up his engagement at Cheltenham in a fortnight's time.
Speaking to the Nick Luck Daily Podcast, Buckley said: "I think everything revolves around three things really. One is, obviously, we can still remember Friday night for what Friday night was which was a fairly extraordinary thing. Underneath all the hubbub, enthusiasm and joy of a number of his fans who were there - 3,000 odd - he demonstrated at some level or other - but certainly not the bottom - he could have another career on the Flat.
"Hopefully it will be at higher levels - no disrespect to Southwell - than the quality of the race last Friday. So that's a bearing on it. Maybe we would have come to a different decision if his career had revolved only around hurdling but it patently doesn't have to.
"The second thing is that there has been a lot of comment from people pro him running and against him running and I've had entreaties from people in my e-mails who are well versed in jumping who have said please don't break my heart or risk breaking yours. If he did run and something went wrong, it would obviously be terrible for the public and all the people who have loved the horse.
"I think the third thing which obviously weighs heavily in Nicky's mind and obviously significantly in mine is that I got into racing through being a National Hunt enthusiast. I might have played around with the odd bit of a Flat horse or two but basically my racing experience started with jump racing when I used to go to Plumpton as I lived near there and worked near there when I was studying to become a chartered accountant.
"It was through jumping that I became interested in racing and an enthusiast, that I had a lot of jump horses and I'm conscious of the National Hunt fraternity and its great history and the damage that would be done to that if something went wrong. It's been Nicky's life, he's one of the greatest National Hunt trainers there has ever been.
"So I think the two of us are very much aligned, joined by that history of jump racing. We've both been in it in our different ways for a very long time and also together for a very long time. I think we would find it hard to deal with a situation if something went wrong, if he made a mistake and there was an accident. If he just fell over after all this publicity it would not just hurt us, it would be very, very bad for racing and its reputation and I think, therefore, we've tried to do the right thing.
"We're all heartbroken. I feel hugely sad for Nico particularly but everybody at Seven Barrows because he's a huge favourite in the yard.
"We're not people who want to run any risk of damaging National Hunt racing. I've been criticised for many things in my life, I can take them, all the shit that would come down the pipe if something went wrong, at a personal level, but I don't want to be involved in something that would damage the sport itself, the very fabric of it, and I think on balance it would do and therefore we decided we're not going to run."
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