I wouldn’t go losing faith in Oscars Well yet, that’s for sure. (That’s Oscars Well, by the way, not Oscars Wells, or the oft preferred Oscar Wells.)

A horse wins a race, we cut his odds in all his potential engagements on which there is an ante post market; a horse loses, we extend his odds. That’s the way it works, that’s the rule, with only a negligible number of exceptions. So it probably shouldn’t have been surprising that bookmakers extended Oscars Well’s (that’s possessive) odds for the Champion Hurdle.

16/1 was the best you could do about him this morning, which was fine. When I turned on Oddschecker, with a semblance of trepidation, after he ran at Down Royal today, though, I actually was half expecting that his odds would have been cut, bookmakers being bookmakers and all. I thought, best case scenario, some of them will have cut his odds, and most of them will have left him on 16/1. So it was a little surprising that Ladbrokes and William Hill had pushed him out to 20/1, and it was even more surprising when I checked (it is Oddschecker after all) again a half an hour later to see that Totesport, masquerading as Betfred, had pushed him out to 25/1. That’s too big.

The form book says that Oscars Well finished third today, four lengths behind the winner The Real Article, two and a half lengths behind the runner-up Kalann. What it doesn’t tell you is that Oscars Well settled really well off an unsuitably slow pace, that he jumped fluently and accurately, that he travelled best of all over the third last and that he looked by far the most likely winner when he jumped on over the second last. Nor does it say that his two main rivals had race fitness on their side, while Oscars Well was having his first run since Cheltenham. Well, actually, it does say that, but you have to dig a little deeper.

Oscars Well was probably the best novice hurdler in training last season. He won the Navan Hurdle and the Deloitte Hurdle, two Grade 1 contests, and he probably would have won the Neptune Investments Hurdle at Cheltenham in March had he not lost his footing on landing over the final flight. This was his first run since.

It was significant that he was relatively weak in the market immediately prior to the race, and that Robbie Power was not hard on the horse once his chance of winning the race had gone. It all pointed suggested that Oscars Well was expected to come on for the run, and it would be a surprise now if he didn’t.

In running so well against a couple of highly talented rivals – The Real Article had won a Grade 2 contest at Tipperary on his most recent start last month and is a live Champion Hurdle aspirant himself, while Kalann had been most impressive in winning a Class 2 hurdle at Cheltenham’s October meeting – this was a more than encouraging return to the racecourse for Jessica Harrington’s gelding, an excellent start to the season, his first outside of novice company. It would be hugely surprising if he does not go on from this now.

* For more of Donn’s thoughts, visit www.donnmcclean.com

A couple of final points on Cheltenham. Firstly, the post-race jockey interviews. There has been a lot of negative feedback on the interviews with the jockeys directly after the race. This is not a new thing. It’s almost fashionable now to give out about them.

I can’t see the argument, I don’t really understand the argument. The main gripe seems to be that they don’t add anything, that the jockeys always come out with the same old banal ramblings.

Let’s assume for a second that they always do. (They don’t always, but admittedly they do sometimes.) Is that that bad? The world of broadcasting stops to hear what Alex Ferguson or Arsene Wenger has to say after a match, or John Terry or Frank Lampard or the man of the match of the day. Banal? Football players? Never.

Actually at Cheltenham, I thought some of the jockey interviews were very good. AP was good after winning on Noble Prince, his first winner of the Festival, the monkey-off-the-back winner, Sam Waley-Cohen was remarkably articulate after winning the Gold Cup, coming out with some eminently re-usable and re-used quotes, Derek O’Connor was great after riding his second winner of the week on Zemsky. The I-never-thought-that-Cheltenham-was-the-be-all-and-end-all quote was a keeper. And there were many more.

The intrusion argument is relevant, as in, is it fair to intrude on a jockey’s innermost thoughts after he has ridden a Cheltenham winner? But surely that’s the point of the interview, and the only person who should have a problem with that – if there is a problem to be had – is the jockey. Some riders didn’t agree to do them when they first started. I’m not sure if they still don’t. I can’t remember Choc Thornton being interviewed by Alice Plunkett after he won on Bensalem. Maybe he was, I wasn’t watching the Channel 4 coverage live and I can’t remember seeing him interviewed on the recordings, but if he wasn’t, that is his prerogative. He doesn’t need the viewers to argue his case.

So if the best argument against the post-race jockey interviews is that sometimes they don’t add a great deal, surely they should be left in place until somebody comes up with a better use of the immediate broadcasting aftermath of the race. I haven’t heard a better alternative yet.

Secondly, was I the only one who thought that the result of the County Hurdle was a dead-heat? When they flashed past, I though that Get Me Out Of Here had held on. When I watched the replay, I thought that Final Approach might have just shaded it on the nod. When the result was announced, I wasn’t surprised, but I was when I came home and had a look at the actual photograph of the finish on the screen.

I had no financial interest, I was delighted that there was another Irish winner, but I can’t see how the judge split them. The tips of both horses’ noses appeared to me to be on the line. Bang on. Maybe the judge had a super-duper pixel-splitter that has only just been invented. Somebody told me afterwards that there has never been a dead-heat at the Cheltenham Festival. Maybe that is neither here nor there.

Finally, what’s all this recent talk about the Champion Hurdle not living up to its billing? Okay, so it was disappointing that Binocular didn’t make it to the start, his inclusion would have added to the fascination, but it may be that the winner is one of the best hurdlers we have seen in some time, because the runner-up is probably top class.

Hurricane Fly oozes class. He won a listed race on the flat, when he beat a subsequent Champion Stakes winner and a subsequent Arlington Million winner into second and third places respectively, and he has obviously taken that ability over his hurdles. Now we know he handles Cheltenham as well. It was always possible that he would win out of the park if he did, and the fact that the runner-up was able to run him so close probably says more about the runner-up’s talent than it does about the winner’s failing.

The relatively sedate pace would have suited neither Hurricane Fly nor Peddlers Cross. The pair of them were able to pull clear of a top class field despite the pace, not because of it.

* For more of Donn’s thoughts, visit www.donnmcclean.com.

With the shock withdrawal of Binocular from Tuesday’s stanjames.com Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham, Menorah now heads a field of 11 runners.

Nicky Henderson’s remaining entry is Welsh Champion Hurdle winner Oscar Whisky.

Alan King’s Salden Licht was the only other defector at the 48-hour final declaration stage.

Ruby Walsh, who is favourite to be top jockey at the meeting, teams up with main Irish hope Hurricane Fly for Willie Mullins.

Peddlers Cross carries the hopes of the north, while trainer Donald McCain also saddles Overturn.

Khyber Kim will attempt to go one better than last year for Nigel Twiston-Davies, while Alan King has kept in Kingwell Hurdle victor Mille Chief.

Philip Fenton is hoping Dunguib, the 2009 Champion Bumper winner, can show his true colours after only finishing third in the Supreme last spring. The field is completed by Bygones Of Brid and Clerk’s Choice,

Here are some more stats to muse upon, this time for the Champion Hurdle.

Of the last 21 winners, six were sent off as favourite, and three of those were Istabraq in 1998, 1999 and 2000.

Two horses have won on more than one occasion in our sample, these being Istabraq and Hardy Eustace (2004 and 2005), while all bar three of the 21 winners were aged six, seven and eight. Broken down, this is seven wins for six-year-olds, seven for seven-year-olds and four for eight-year-olds. The other winners were five-year-olds (once) and nine-year-olds (twice).

Six of the 21 winners have been priced at 10/1 or bigger, and 15 at 9/1 or shorter. Only two of the 21 won by more than six lengths, with 12 having won by three lengths or less and six by a length or less. And you have to go back to pre-Istabraq times to find a Champion Hurdle winner that hadn’t won or run well at the festival or, failing this, had won at the track prior to ‘Champion’ success.

Ireland has sent out the Champion winner seven times in our sample, although these have all come since 1999, so they have won seven of the last 12 runnings. There has been no UK-trained winning-favourite of the race since Morley Street in 1991. On only eight occasions has the SP favourite either won or finished in the first three in the contest.

The upshot of this is that the winner is more likely to be priced at 9/1 or shorter, that it will not be a UK-trained favourite, that it is likely to have previously won or been placed at the festival, that a repeat win for a UK-based runner is unlikely, that the winning distance is highly likely to be five lengths or less – and probably four lengths or less – and that the triumphant horse will be aged six or seven.

You could also add into the mix that there has been no UK-trained back-to-back winner in the last 21 runnings and that, on 14 of the 21 occasions in our sample, a horse priced 20/1 or bigger has finished in the first three.

These statistical musings, throwing in a touch of probability, rule out Binocular (on the back-to-back basis), Hurricane Fly (no course form), Dunguib and Oscar Whisky (prices too big, although they could yet shorten), Cue Card and Mille Chief (wrong age), Overturn (no course form) and Khyber Kim (wrong age).

This leaves Menorah and Peddlers Cross as the most likely winners, with Khyber Kim and Thousand Stars as the ones that could run into a place at a bigger price.

Seems simple, doesn’t it?

Of course Long Run and Binocular made the headlines at the Seven Barrows press day yesterday, in the way that Zeus and Apollo generally make the headlines at a Greek gods convention. Kauto Star is still the one to beat in the Gold Cup, apparently (headline-maker), but Nicky Henderson is more than happy with Long Run. It looks like an open Champion Hurdle and a very good one (sub-heading) but Binocular is right on track.

There was plenty in the small print that was noteworthy. First of all, Minella Class. Or rather, not in the small print. Where was he? He was up at Huntingdon, that’s where he was, busy getting beaten in a Class 2 novices’ hurdle. So all this talk about Minella Class being the Henderson Neptune Hurdle horse, that he was possibly ahead of Bobs Worth (winner of the Grade 2 novices’ contest at Cheltenham’s January meeting) in the Henderson Neptune Hurdle pecking order, is swept neatly under the carpet. Is he still on track for the Neptune or isn’t he? No mention of him in latest dispatches.

There was a little bit of reading between the lines. Like it looks as though Punchestowns will not go in the Gold Cup, and it is more likely that he will wait for the three-mile chase at Aintree than run in the World Hurdle. Riverside Theatre is apparently ‘a possible’ for the Ryanair. The trainer just wants to see how he has come out of his Ascot race in another week’s time. Do you think that a man who has trained 37 Cheltenham Festival winners, more than any other trainer with a licence currently, 10 more than Paul Nicholls, would leave a horse like a fully fit Riverside Theatre at home kicking the door of his box while they are hooping and hollering at the foot of Cleeve Hill for four days in March? Me neither.

Aegean Dawn may run in the Imperial Cup at Sandown on the Saturday before Cheltenham and then try to win the bonus (£75,000 isn’t it?) by trying to win a race at the Festival, probably the County Hurdle. Intriguingly, Voy Por Ustedes (remember him? won the Arkle in 2006 and the Champion Chase in 2007 when trained by Alan King?) could also go in the Coral Cup or the County Hurdle (he is rated 145 over hurdles) or the Grand Annual (as opposed to 160 over fences).

There was a lot of stuff in there that we kindof knew already, but it was still nice to have it re-affirmed. Like French Opera will go for the Champion Chase, not the Grand Annual, and Mad Max will probably join him, although that was a little new. Like Tanks For That will go for the Grand Annual, the Johnny Henderson Grand Annual remember, and he has been ‘kept back’ after he ran behind Woolcombe Folly before Christmas in order to protect his handicap mark. He is 7lb higher now than he was then. You think that gives him a chance? (Hint: Woolcombe Folly is 15lb higher.) Anquetta will probably join him in the Grand Annual, up 7lb for his Sandown win.

Master Of The Hall will go in the RSA Chase, Mr Gardner will go in the Jewson, Ericht will go in the Bumper, although the bumper isn’t a race that Henderson likes, Grandouet and A Media Luz in the Triumph. Oscar Whisky will go in the Champion as opposed to the World Hurdle, and the reverse is probably the case for Zaynar, who has had his palate cauterised again, which may be no good if your job is determining the intricacies of the differing tastes of oats of diverse origins, but which is apparently good for breathing if your job is running your lungs out for two or three miles.

Just 17 days to go now.

* For more of Donn’s thoughts, visit www.donnmcclean.com.

Starluck has been backed into a short enough price for the Arkle Chase ahead of his debut over birch at Huntingdon today, and plenty will be happy to take a short price about Alan Fleming’s charge in a race where he should outclass his rivals if translating his hurdles form.

I’m far from convinced however – he has made a switch to chasing at an odd time having started the campaign as a Champion Hurdle contender, and he doesn’t have the look of a chaser to me, rather light in build as his Flat-orientated breeding would suggest. He’s worth taking on despite only facing 2 serious rivals.

I’ve made my case for laying Andrew Thornton blind on hurdlers previously, and he rides Mayolynn in the 14:30, making him easy to oppose at odds of around 9/2.

Selections:

14:00 Dream Function (Finds Little), Huntingdon
14:30 Mayolynn (Poor Jockey), Huntingdon
15:05 Starluck (Overrated), Huntingdon
16:10 Ginolad (Not Good Enough), Huntingdon
16:40 Decent Lord (Poor Jumper), Huntingdon
17:10 Mount Benger (Poor Jockey), Huntingdon

And while we’re on the age thing (Long Run, Gold Cup; Kauto Star, Gold Cup), what about a five-year-old in the Champion Hurdle?  No chance.  No way.  They just don’t win it.  Have you ever seen a Sophomore win anything worthwhile?  Eh, I don’t think so.

Before Katchit came along and ruined everything, you could very easily put a line through every five-year-old with Champion Hurdle pretensions.  See You Then was the last five-year-old to win it, you could say, and he was such an exceptional five-year-old that he went and won two more (I’ve used it), becoming the first horse since Persian War to win three Champion Hurdles in a row.

The last five-year-old before See You Then?  Night Nurse, a member of the original Golden Era of two-mile-hurdlers, who beat Monksfield and Sea Pigeon to win the race the following year as a six-year-old.  Before Night Nurse?  Persian War.  QED.

So what about Katchit then?  Well, that was just a freak year.  It wasn’t a very strong renewal of the Champion Hurdle, we were in the post Brave Inca, Macs Joy, Hardy Eustace era we were operating in a bit of a vacuum.  Osana was second and he has won just two soft enough novice chases in 13 runs since, and Sizing Europe would surely have won it had he not gone wrong at the bottom of the hill.  Katchit himself, remarkably, hasn’t won a race since.

Not so fast though.  Events subsequent to Katchit – and even events previous to him with the benefit of hindsight, if you follow – suggests that this could be a trend more than a freak.  In 2007, the year before Katchit, the five-year-old Afsoun, a 28/1 shot, ran a cracker to finish third behind Sublimity and Brave Inca.  In 2008, Punjabi, the only other five-year-old in the race, finished third behind Katchit.  In 2009, the five-year-olds Celestial Halo, Binocular and Crack Away Jack, finished second, third and fourth, beaten a neck, a head and two and a quarter lengths.  Last year, Zaynar finished third for the five-year-olds.

The reality is that, in the last four years, the Sophomores have done very well from relatively sparse representation.  If you had had £1 each-way on every five-year-old that has run in the race in the last four years, you would actually be showing a net profit of almost £9.  So if you fancy Mille Chief or Cue Card or Silviniaco Conti for the Champion, don’t be put off by their age.

* For more of Donn’s thoughts, visit www.donnmcclean.com.

Anne of Kiev’s (7-2) win yesterday hopefully gave readers a boost ahead of the Christmas.

With no racing today, I will take a look at the Champion Hurdle and select the horse whom I believe will win it and also the horse who looks the best value in the current markets.

Cheltenham Champion Hurdle: Hurricane Fly (11-2 William Hill), Khyber Kim (16-1 bet365).

The Champion Hurdle is shaping up to be the race of next year’s festival. The current market leader is Menorah, who looks a very worthy contender on the basis of some solid course form including an emphatic win from the talented Novice Cue Card in the recent trial race. A strong galloping sort he is likely to make the frame, but looks bit a too short a price strictly on form at this point.

Binocular, was arguably the most impressive of the recent winners of the race, in last year’s renewal, where he produced a very high class performance in emphatically beating Khyber Kim. If he is in the same form again come March, it will be difficult to stop him, but he does not have the overall consistency which a true champion should display.

Peddlers Cross is a young improving horse but I have my doubts whether he will be quick enough to win a Champion Hurdle.

My main fancy for the race is the highly talented Hurricane Fly. An Irish flat bred son of Montjeu, Hurricane began his career in France and emerged as one of the most promising young horses there. He joined Willie Mullins’ yard in 2008 and showed promise in top French hurdle races that summer before producing an outstanding Novice performance at Leopardstown in December 2008, displaying fine acceleration when beating the smart Go Native by ten lengths. The subsequent performances of Go Native, in winning the Supreme Novices’ and last years Christmas Hurdle, showed what a good performance Hurricane Fly produced that day at Leopardstown. Minor injuries have unfortunately halted this horse’s progression to date and he has been forced to miss the last two Cheltenham Festivals. However, in each year, he has been produced off an absence to win impressively at the Punchestown Festival.

On his seasonal reappearance this year in the Hatton’s Grace Hurdle, his performance oozed class, the way he travelled smoothly and quickened sharply away from a good horse in Solwhit. The fact that that race was over two and a half miles also augers well for his Champion Hurdle prospects, as it is an asset to have a horse who can stay a bit further than two miles around Cheltenham.

I believe Hurricane Fly is real class horse, potentially the best hurdler since Istabraq, and if Willie Mullins can get him to Cheltenham in top order, he should win the Champion Hurdle in March.

The one nagging doubt about Hurricane is that he is injury prone and with that in mind the horse who appeals as the best value in the race is Khyber Kim. This Nigel Twiston-Davies trained gelding was a revelation last year winning three times, including twice at Prestbury Park and also finishing a good second in the Champion itself. As mentioned above he was well beaten by Binocular that day, but overall he is much the more consistent of the pair.

I believe Khyber Kim’s Cheltenham form is actually stronger than Menorah’s and the fact that he is four times the price of that rival is ridiculous. Khyber has great each way prospects and is too big at 16-1.

StarBets.ie – the Irish Betting Site – brings you the latest Cheltenham Champion Hurdle odds.

Cheltenham Champion Hurdle Odds

Horse	Odds

You can get more Cheltenham Champion Hurdle odds and a free bet here.

Strange to be researching a Cheltenham feature in the middle of the summer, when the ground in your back garden (unwatered) is firm to hard, the temperature is scraping 22 degrees, maybe 23, rain is so scarce that you have to water your new Mimosa tree every second evening, and your main racing thoughts are of the Eclipse and the King George (a mile and a half flat race at Ascot, not a three-mile chase at Kempton), but it still takes months rather than days to turn a television programme around apparently, so needs must.

Favourite Cheltenham moment? It’s a four-way photo between Dawn Run and Moscow Flyer and Kicking King and War Of Attrition, but the mare just gets up. So where were you when Peter O’Sullevan uttered those words? Where were you when the mare began to get up, and wrested the Gold Cup back from Wayward Lad, who would have traded at 1.02 had Betfair been more than an embryo in Andrew Black’s head at the time? At the top of the uncovered stands, binoculars long-since abandoned, not because the left lens wouldn’t focus properly, but because you couldn’t hold them steady for all that your heart was pounding and your hands were shaking? Or standing on the lawn, trying to see through the higher heads in front of you, straining your ears to listen to the commentary, ecstatic as you saw Jonjo’s red body flash past behind the sea of hats, and knowing that there was a chance? Nope. Down the back of the chemistry lab, actually, with a yellow transistor radio pressed to your ear, confident that the whole distillation of water experiment would hold Mr Kelly’s attention for at least seven minutes.

“What’s going on over there?”

“Dawn Run just won the Gold Cup sir.”

Detention at least, maybe a note home to your parents. Still, it would be worth it, the mare had won the Gold Cup, and that wasn’t going to change.

“Oh good. What price was she?”

We are used to nine and 10 Irish winners at Cheltenham these days. We had five in 2007, and we were disappointed. Seven this year was all right, we’ll take it, but only just. No Gold Cup winner, no Champion Hurdle winner, and if one of the seven hadn’t been Big Zeb’s win in the Champion Chase, we probably would have been disgusted.

How quickly we forget the dark days, not that long ago even now. Galmoy flew the Irish flag on his own in 1987 and 1988, and in 1989, when John Mulhern’s gelding just couldn’t get his 10-year-old body past Rustle in his gallant attempt to land the hat-trick in the Stayers’ Hurdle, there were no Irish-trained winners at Cheltenham. Not one. Zip.

When we think of the Champion Hurdle, we think that it is ours to win. Seven wins in nine renewals will do that to you, and the fact that we haven’t won any of the last three doesn’t rest easy. We’re overdue. Again, forgetting the dark days. We didn’t win the Champion Hurdle at all between Dawn Run in 1984 and Istabraq in 1998. That’s 14 years. We didn’t win the Gold Cup between Dawn Run in 1986 and Imperial Call in 1996, and we didn’t win it again until Kicking King came along in 2005. Nor did we win the Champion Chase between Buck House in 1986 and Klairon Davis in 1996, nor the Sun Alliance Chase between Antarctic Bay in 1985 and Florida Pearl in 1998.

These are good days. Hopefully the bad days will get more remote as time moves on.

* For more of Donn’s thoughts, visit www.donnmcclean.com.

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