Champion Hurdle Trials

20 January 2010

They say weight can stop a freight train. In watching the various important hurdle races that have come along – and often been lost to the weather in this frustrating midwinter – I have come to admire the skill behind the nowadays more standardised conditions in Champion Hurdle trials.

Punjabi remains firmly on course for Haydock’s sportingbet.com-sponsored event on Saturday, and I was saved the burden of bothering Nicky Henderson to check that out on Tuesday by a fortunate coincidence.

When At the Races shows four meetings, you need luck to spot anything, especially when three are over jumps. I did, however, happen to see the exchange between one of Punjabi’s biggest fans, my former Daily Telegraph colleague Jim McGrath and the Champion Hurdler’s former regular partner Mick Fitzgerald as they twittered on at Folkestone.

Jim, as he had with me at Lingfield recently, invoked his “forgotten horse” mantra about Punjabi among the “Henderson three” for Cheltenham and Mick sort of agreed, saying “he’s not flashy” and implying professional might be the best word for him.

After a few minutes’ chat, Mick responded to Jim’s pointing out that Punjabi had also been left in at Leopardstown on Sunday with: “I’ll call my old boss” and half an hour later came the news that most of us expected. It was Haydock all the way.

Mick also found out during the call that Zaynar, although entered for Haydock, was there in the sort of comprehensive insurance policy that Henderson employs to make sure nothing slips through the holes in the system in such difficult times.

Zaynar, the Champion Hurdle favourite, would probably in any case be better off at Kelso for the re-arranged and slightly longer Morebattle Hurdle. This reverts to its old-style conditions profile after years of not entirely satisfactory limited handicap identity.

The snow of recent times kept the Henderson team restricted to the indoor school for more than a week and just when they thought winter had ended, the white stuff returned to Lambourn at the highly-inconvenient time of Wednesday morning.

Whether Punjabi will be fit enough to win at Haydock, given his metabolism and the almost guaranteed heavy ground, will only be known during the race. Certainly there are enough opponents capable of testing the reigning Champion to the full.

Medermit, receiving 4lb as his best win last season was in a novice race (half penalties), was ahead of our boy in the Boylesports. He had a fitness advantage, as Alan King ran him behind Khyber Kim (the Boylesports winner) in the Greatwood at the earlier Cheltenham meeting.

Medermit is the link between Punjabi and Go Native, winner of last year’s Supreme Novice Hurdle at Cheltenham on the same day as Punjabi’s great triumph. Interestingly, the times of the two races were almost identical, Medermit flying up the hill to be second to Noel Meade’s star.

One of Medermit’s rivals from that race, Red Moloney, runs on Saturday for the Howard Johnson team which until Wednesday at Newcastle, had been restricted to four runners ( two placed) all on the revolutionary all-bumper card at Southwell last week, since the New Year.

Red Moloney had finished a close enough sixth at Cheltenham without seeming to come home as well as might have been expected for a Listed flat-race winner. Two runs this winter have not indicated much progress, but he remains a possible threat off bottom-weight, 8lb below the champ. His colleague Arcalis might need the run.

Cape Tribulation is also a decent yardstick. He was six lengths behind Zaynar at Cheltenham, having looked dangerous half a mile out, in the Relkeel over two and a half, and then finished a similar distance behind Go Native when fourth in the Christmas Hurdle and is hard to dismiss.

I referred earlier to the clever framing of the weights for these races, and with Zaynar and Sublimity (aiming for Leopardstown) probable absentees, the joint top-weight will be Songe, trained by Charlie Longsden.

Songe was receiving 6lb when defeating Punjabi’s stable-mate Afsoun by a length and a half in this race last year, but now concedes 8lb to Trevor Hemmings’ eight-year-old.

As Henderson points out, this has been Afsoun’s target for some time, and given his 14lb pull with Songe, and an earlier easy win in the contest, he’d have to go close, especially if Punjabi comes up a little short after the latest weather intervention.

The pair of team mates met twice in the past. In the 2008 Champion Hurdle Punjabi (first time for Barry Geraghty) was third and Afsoun (Fitzgerald) seventh. They recorded identical performances in the Christmas Hurdle last season, both falling, Afsoun first, and then Punbjabi crashing out at the second last with that wbx.com million bonus going down with him.

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