Lydia Hislop Road To Cheltenham Unibet Champion Hurdle

Unibet Champion Hurdle

The International Hurdle had everything fans could have wanted from a top-class race – except a decent pace. Dawdle (in relative terms) it might have been, resulting in plenty of argy-bargy and merely four-and-a-quarter lengths between the first six home at the line, but it was exactly what Cheltenham needed after the distress of the Caspian Caviar.

Ten-year-old My Tent Or Yours, three times runner-up in the Champion Hurdle and even second to Champagne Fever in in the 2013 Sky Bet Supreme, had never actually won at Cheltenham prior to Saturday. Meeting relative spring chicken, nine-year-old The New One, and young pretender Melon on 6lbs favourable terms proved enough to correct that factual oddity and to register his first success since a jumpers’ bumper at Kempton back in February 2014.

Tent, as Henderson has always affectionately called him, has got sensible in his old age and it was notable how well he settled despite the sedate gallop. As his trainer reminisced afterwards, he used to have to race in every contraption known to man in an effort to get him to calm down. Wiser now, he did everything Barry Geraghty required of him.

Given the age he is, nobody was making any large claims afterwards about how he’ll fare come his fourth attempt on the Champion Hurdle in March. Sea Pigeon won the two-mile crown aged 11 in 1981 but it’s since remained a young horse’s game with nine-year-olds Rooster Booster in 2003 and Hurricane Fly in 2013 the oldest winners since.

Nonetheless, it was great to see Tent taking the opportunity presented to him. His trainer had said beforehand that he was more forward for his seasonal debut than many a previous campaign and the ground was suitably no worse than tacky good-to-soft (verging on soft) on the spectrum.

As Geraghty later remarked, had any one of the first three missed the last hurdle with an error, it would have been race over. Having claimed the stands’ rail – to which his jockey holds the title deeds – Tent came up well when asked at the last before steadily quelling The New One up the final hill.

Of course, it was the 6lbs the runner-up had to concede that made the difference – as his protective trainer Nigel Twiston-Davies chafed afterwards, despite knowing the rules when he signed up for the race.

It’s no longer in good taste to joke about connections’ perennial Champion Hurdle ambitions after this horse’s tremendous weight-carrying fourth in the Greatwood reminded us in palpable terms just how good he is.

Aside from also celebrating victory, there can have been no better way for Sam Twiston-Davies to return from injury than to ride the horse he grew up with. Although The New One characteristically adjusted right at some of his hurdles, he kept himself in the game with an absolute belter of a leap at the last before fighting all the way up the final hill.

He looks in better form currently than, for example, last term. It will be interesting to see whether Team Twiston-Davies are again bewitched by the beautiful light emitted by the Champion Hurdle and persuaded away from the Stayers’ Hurdle project, previously agreed as the 2018 Festival target in a hard-fought pact Sam made with his dad last season.

Melon ran with credit at the weights – his best performance yet – considering this was only his fifth hurdle start and he got involved in some bovver either side of the penultimate flight when shuffled back on the approach and then persisting with holding the inside rail on landing. As a result, things got physical with Old Guard.

That and the fact Melon was least willing of the seven-strong field to accept a steady pace compromised his finishing effort in the final sprint. Yet this was nonetheless encouraging for what is likely to be a more suitably conducted race back at Cheltenham in three months’ time.

Whether that race will be the Champion Hurdle or the County rather depends on stablemate Faugheen and Mullins’ band of understudies.

Ch’Tibello ran well on his first start since being ruled out of the 2017 Champion Hurdle with an infected foot. An improved horse last season, he travelled well before jockey Harry Skelton trespassed onto Geraghty’s standside territory and was brought up short.

Swinton and Summer Hurdle winner John Constable performed well in a grade that stretches him. My hat is doffed to Old Guard, who was agitated to hold his position from an early stage but kept trying to the extent he even regained fifth approaching the line.

My Tent Or Yours, Melon and Ch’Tibello are all entered in the two-mile Grade One Ryanair Hurdle at Leopardstown over the Christmas period.

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