Matt Brocklebank reflects on a couple of Cheltenham winners who could give Britain a very strong hand in some of the key novice hurdles later in the campaign.
"With those novices, if they do improve then there are pros to it. We watch Aidan [O'Brien] do it a lot on the Flat with those good maidens, they finish third, fourth or fifth first time and step forward massively. I've just learnt a little bit to replicate those people who have gone before me and do it very well."
Dan Skelton spoke candidly on Racing TV about his modus operandi with novice hurdlers this season after Mydaddypaddy won first time up in a maiden at Carlisle on November 10.
He went on to add that “the more I'm doing this and the owners understanding that we build into the season, rather than set the fireworks off early with the novices especially, is a very helpful position to be in."
Mydaddypaddy was ready – and classy – enough to get the job done but Skelton was speaking more broadly and five days earlier, stablemate Carlenrig had finished second behind odds-on favourite Rocking Man in a maiden hurdle over two miles three and a half furlongs at Chepstow.
Highclere Thoroughbred Racing are clearly among the stable's more understanding owners as it can’t be argued the horse – who won a three-mile point-to-point at Hexham last December – made an encouraging introduction to life under NH rules without being given an unnecessarily hard time on debut.
On Saturday, upped in trip to three miles, the chestnut duly took a sizeable step forward to win Cheltenham’s Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle.
One or two social media provocateurs were attempting to cry foul but punters should arguably feel better equipped thanks to Skelton’s openness, and the campaigning of Carlenrig from race to race so far can only go down as an astute piece of training.
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Tempting bet for the Turners
Carlenrig is evidently a very talented young horse on an upward curve but the feelings roused from that event didn’t come close to those experienced after Old Park Star won Friday's British EBF "National Hunt" Novices' Hurdle over two miles and a furlong.
We all saw a future top-class performer here, I’m convinced of that.
I was working New Year’s Eve last December and got a similar tingle when Paul Nicholls' No Drama This End bolted up in the Warwick bumper, while before that the impression left by Enable’s Cheshire Oaks also comes to mind.
I’ve one or two regrets over not making a penny from either of those horses in subsequent starts and don’t wish to make the same mistake with Old Park Star, who has earned a punchy Timeform rating of 139p (Mydaddypaddy 140P and No Drama This End is 136P, by comparison).
The usual issue with these pre-Christmas, British-based novices is that we’ve obviously yet to see the cream of the current crop in Ireland, although Willie Mullins' Love Me Tender (143p) is still the just about clubhouse leader in the novice hurdle division in light of his Grade 3 Tipperary victory on October 5.
There also appears to be a bit of a toss-up between the Sky Bet Supreme or the Turners Novices’ Hurdle if getting Old Park Star on side antepost is the kind of thing you might be into.
My initial reaction was the longer race and, although now a slightly shorter price in the markets for the Festival curtain-raiser over two miles, I'm tempted to sit tight and take some of the 14/1 for the Turners.
His brother Chosen Mate won the Grand Annual but there’s plenty of stamina in the pedigree and I just don’t think he jumps quite like a high-level two-miler – that was particularly evident throughout the middle section of his debut at Kempton last month and again at Cheltenham. To my eye he's a clever jumper who pricks his ears, rather than a rapid hurdler who does things purely on instinct. Either way, the engine is considerable.
Old Park Star could be a fantastic chaser all being well but that's a pretty dull way of thinking, almost along the lines of suggesting Enable might one day make up into a King George or Arc de Triomphe horse, rather than simply getting stuck in at 6/1 (!) for Epsom less than a month on from that striking Chester performance.
As already suggested, there's nothing to say you can't improve from one experience to the next in this rich and colourful game.
Published at 16:00 GMT on 14/12/25
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