The New One bids for fourth International Hurdle win

The New One will bid for a fourth Unibet International Hurdle win in the last five years at Cheltenham on Saturday.

Nigel Twiston-Davies' grand old campaigner has already shown this season that he has lost little of his dash, winning the Welsh Champion Hurdle and finishing a close fourth in the Greatwood Hurdle under a welter burden. Now back in Graded company, he certainly sets the standard at a course he knows so well up against old rival My Tent Or Yours.

Twiston-Davies said: "It has been his race for three of the last four years. We gave the weight away last year and hopefully we can do it again. My Tent Or Yours has not run this season so maybe he won't be quite as sharp. We have got a race-fitness advantage as we have already had two runs this season. It was brilliant performance last time out. He was only beaten five lengths giving tonnes of weight away so it was a superb run. He seems as good as ever and is still high up there in the ratings."

Nicky Henderson understandably has a soft spot for three-time Champion Hurdle runner-up My Tent Or Yours, but fears soft ground may not help his cause.

Henderson said: "The ground is going to worry us considerably. It is not ideal, but he has become more versatile the older he has got. The plan was to keep My Tent Or Yours and Buveur D'Air apart and we set up a plan and this is the way we are going with him. He is in very good form. He was out in the snow on Tuesday morning and his gallop at Newbury the other day was excellent. Much like The New One, he has not lost that will."

The new kid on the block is Willie Mullins' Melon, second in the Supreme Novices' Hurdle in March and now in at the deep end.

Assistant trainer Patrick Mullins said: "On ratings he's a long way wrong, but he is lightly raced and you'd hope there's plenty of improvement there. Giving 6lb to a horse like My Tent Or Yours is a tough task, even if this maybe isn't his time of year or his ground. The New One is a battled-hardened horse and a good yardstick and at least the race will tell us whether we're going down the right route with him. It will do him no harm to go over and get more experience of the track."

Ch'tibello has his first start of the season after showing he was not far from this level last term. A setback ruled him out of the Festival.

Trainer Dan Skelton said: "I am happy with Ch'tibello. Chasing had been mentioned, but we looked at this race and thought it could be a small field, which it is, so we said we would give it a go. He improved last season and I hope there is more improvement in him. I don't know, but I hope so."

John Constable made great strides in the spring for Evan Williams, who told At The Races: "I pulled him out of the Fighting Fifth because the ground was very heavy up there and I thought it was a long way to go to run on heavy ground. But he has to run somewhere so it makes sense to run in this race.

"I think he's very much a spring-summer-autumn type of horse. He changed so dramatically with a bit of sun on his back - I can't see this time of year in the mud is going to help us in any way, shape or form. But, saying that, he's had a lovely freshen-up and with the mark he's got he needs to run in these races. I've been second to The New One two or three times and he's very good on his day, and that's without worrying about Willie Mullins. It will be difficult taking on the genuine Graded horses."

Dell' Arca and Old Guard, who won the race two years ago, have also been declared in a seven-strong field.

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