Cheltenham Festival - Champion Hurdle Preview 2012

The Champion Hurdle is the showpiece race on the first day of the Cheltenham Festival and this year superstar Hurricane Fly will be bidding to become part of an elite group of horses that have won back to back renewals of the Grade One championship contest.

Indeed, Hurricane Fly is widely regarded as the best hurdler to have arisen since Hardy Eustace who was the last horse to complete the feat back in 2004, 2005.

Should Willie Mullins’ charge manage to follow in such footsteps, he is likely to be held in the kind of esteem that former triple hurdle king Istabraq was at the end of the nineties.

Fabulous yet fragile, the Fly had his seasonal reappearance delayed due to a minor setback and the careful consideration of Irish Champion handler Mullins who is renowned for only racing his stars when they are absolutely 100% right.

The eight-year-olds return was well worth the wait however as he romped to a devastating success in the Irish equivalent in late January, leaving quality horses such as Unaccompanied and Thousand Stars trailing in his wake.

The latter of that pair will re-oppose in the Champion – however if the current odds-on favourite is to be overturned, it is likely to be either Zarkandar or 2010 winner Binocular who will snatch the glory.

Paul Nicholls’ Zarkandar was hugely impressive in last season’s Triumph Hurdle, cruising down to the last before easing away from the aforementioned Unaccompanied to score by over two lengths.

The five-year-old then followed up by winning the Grade One Juvenile Hurdle at Aintree during the Grand National meeting – and his defeat of Kumbeshwar firmly installed him as one of the chief dangers to Hurricane Fly this year.

Like Hurricane Fly, Zarkandar’s eagerly anticipated racecourse return was held up, but it was, nevertheless, a successful one. Sent off as favourite for the betfair Hurdle at Newbury, the horse looked to be struggling for pace heading into the straight before battling through in between rivals to grab victory on the line.

That performance instantaneously came across as rugged and slightly below par in terms of a potential Champion Hurdler.

But subsequent news informing the public that Paul Nicholls’ yard had suffered a cough meant that an infected Zarkandar had in fact run the race of his life under the circumstances.

Zarkandar is generally 5/1 for the big race, a price shared by Nicky Henderson’s Binocular.

Henderson is under no illusions with regards to the task of beating Hurricane Fly and indeed recently admitted that he would have preferred a phalanx of top horses to take on the champ.

But with the highly rated pair of Grandouet and Spirit Son now both on the side lines, Henderson must now play his trump card and hope that Binocular can rediscover the kind of form which saw him win the race two years ago.

The eight-year-old made a sticky start to the campaign, falling foul of dual purpose horse Overturn at Newcastle before inching to victory at the expense of Rock On Ruby in the Christmas Hurdle.

An effortless success in Wincanton’s Grade Two Bathwick Tyres Hurdle certainly saw Binocular closer to his best, however on official ratings he is still half a stone behind Hurricane Fly and it will take a mesmeric performance to get within touching distance of Mullins’ star, let alone beat him.

Go To bet365

#Ad

03/03/2012     © Frixo 2024