Nicky Henderson has given a positive bulletin regarding Constitution Hill's schooling over hurdles, despite his next start coming on the Flat.
The hugely talented and popular nine-year-old is due to line up in a £40,000 all-weather novice stakes to be sponsored by SBK at Southwell on February 20, but his trainer hasn't ditched the idea of returning to jumping despite the horse having fallen in three of his last four starts.
Henderson told yard sponsors Unibet: "We've got to be terribly happy with the way the schooling and everything has gone. The best scenario I can find at Cheltenham is that is we get a very low sun in the Champion Hurdle... and a bit of frost down the back straight... if there were no hurdles it would be quite tempting!
"But at the moment we have this issue and there's no getting away from it.
"It's not that I need to get a race into him, I just think it's going to be good for him to go to the races and have a nice time. A mile and a half around Southwell is a very different ball game to going two miles around Cheltenham, but let's see how it goes. Then we'll make a few decisions.
"We're still concentrating on the jumping angle, but I'm not quite sure where we could still go.
"We have an appointment with Yogi Breisner, who is somebody I've always thought was a good friend and a very good guru when it comes to jumping. He's coming, he's helping, but I'm not sure we're going to find [anything]. If someone could say 'ah that's what's happening, we can undo that' but we've tried everything so far and we've had a lot of advice from a lot of people and I'm grateful for it.
"Nothing is going wrong, he's brilliant at home, but I can't find a reason for what's going wrong on the racecourse."
Constitution Hill is a general 12/1 chance for the Unibet Champion Hurdle, a race he won in devastating fashion under regular rider Nico de Boinville in 2023.
Related Articles
Safer gambling
We are committed in our support of safer gambling. Recommended bets are advised to over-18s and we strongly encourage readers to wager only what they can afford to lose.
If you are concerned about your gambling, please call the National Gambling Helpline / GamCare on 0808 8020 133.
Further support and information can be found at begambleaware.org and gamblingtherapy.org.
