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The defibrillator has been successfully applied to the two-mile hurdling scene – and, goodness, how that voltage was badly required. The patient has jolted into life after not one, but two, well-applied shocks to the heart. Nonetheless, onlookers still fear total bypass might be the option pursued…

Meanwhile, by comparison the staying-hurdling scene still languishes on a gurney in a corridor outside A&E. Perhaps some of those who raised a gallop in the past ten or so days are still young enough to find some improvement, or else maybe the odd abortive chasing career will be repurposed. If not, Teahupoo’s quiet Christmas at home with the family looks likely to pay off – again.

Where to start? Constitution Hill’s unexpectedly straightforward defeat of Lossiemouth at Kempton was a delightfully firm step in the right direction, but in terms of dispassionate figures did not wear well against Brighterdaysahead’s demolition of State Man three days later at Leopardstown.

The million-dollar questions are: how much – if at all – can the three-time Christmas Hurdle winner improve, and can the mare reproduce the level of her Leopardstown victory in different circumstances? The $999,999 question is whether there is reason to believe Lossiemouth can turn the form around at a track more likely to play to her strengths?

Let’s take these events in reverse chronological order. Gordon Elliott had a plan, signposted when King Of Kingsfield was entered for the Grade One Neville Hotels Hurdle alongside his stablemate and fellow Gigginstown representative.

“Going left-handed and with a lead, coming off a strong pace – that’s when you’ll see the best of her,” Jack Kennedy had asserted after the mare first lowered State Man’s colours in November’s Morgiana Hurdle.

What a shame this prophet was not on board when his words became flesh – albeit his deputy Sam Ewing deserves major plaudits for making the most of the opportunities Santa gave him over Christmas.

On King Of Kingsfield, Danny Gilligan set bold fractions from the outset and Ewing sat close behind on Brighterdaysahead. The gap back to State Man yawned wider on the long run to the second, with Gilligan raising the gallop to 33-34mph and not much relenting. Bar one brief moment, following his mount’s blunder at the third last, his pace never dropped below 30mph until the winner overtook him.

When Ewing asked his mare to jump into the lead at the second last, State Man was still more than ten lengths behind, having gradually drifted ever further back from the start until around the fourth and then yet further again from the fifth before Paul Townend became explicitly animated on the chase towards that penultimate flight.

Yet from there, the mare accelerated before attacking the last in a fearless pact with her rider and galloping on relentlessly, alone showing relatively little tiredness from the strength of the gallop.

State Man, on the other hand, was palpably exhausted by his belated effort to bridge the gap – to such an extent that stablemate Winter Fog, his known inferior with a rating of 150, was able (admittedly under full pressure) to get past him after the last for second place. The indignity!

Before we get down to the analytics can we acknowledge how great it was to see a forest of kids’ hands, those of the O’Leary family and friends, patting the mare in the winner’s enclosure some moments later? Albeit I did chuckle when Michael O’Leary said: “The problem is I bring the children once a year and they’re after winning two races, so they think this game is kind of easy. They never show up when you’re down in the unsaddling enclosure here, having finished pulled up ninth.”

Indeed, there were many marvellous scenes this Christmas. When we’re whingeing (often with good reason) about clashes dodged and dwindling or uncompetitive fields, we should cherish this period of proper sport. This is more like how it used to be! How it should be!

Barely had the trophies been dished out than various fierce debates began raging. Yet that’s what I also enjoy about this game: not confected handbags but different takes on what we just saw and what that might mean for the future, regardless of the inherent uncertainty in that latter pursuit. That’s the whole point for us fans, isn’t it?

So, did Townend give the Gigginstown duo too much rope? Had he been riding Constitution Hill, undoubtedly yes. Had he been on a fully firing State Man, yes. But on that day in history, his mount was clearly not capable of raising such a gallop. If State Man had been capable, having been shielded from the hot up-front fractions by racing so far off the pace as he did, he would have conserved sufficient energy to finish off his race strongly. Instead, he did not; he could not.

This was despite conspicuous pre-race confidence from Team Mullins, transmitted to a betting market that sent him off the 4/9 favourite. Visually, he had stripped fitter for his comparatively narrow defeat by Brighterdaysahead in the Morgiana. He was also returning to his favourite track, where he had never before completed and been beaten, with its December set-up expected to favour him.

For Townend, there were shades of déjà vu all over again, his immediate post-race comments somewhat reminiscent of what he’d said about Lossiemouth at Kempton three days earlier – even if that mare’s performance was, in fact, materially different.

“He never went a yard; he was completely flat. That just wasn’t him,” he said. “I knew after landing at the back of the first. He just wasn’t himself today for some reason.”

The chatter about Willie Mullins’ stable form had already reached an audible hum long before these words were spoken about State Man. So, for many, this was the obvious explanation. There is some credence to the ‘stable form’ argument (if you go in for this sort of thing) as the Closutton yard is currently tracking below its own dizzy standard, as the below graph from Timeform demonstrates:

(Courtesy of and thanks to Timeform)

There are some anecdotal signs, too. Over the Christmas period, Mullins withdrew Daddy Long Legs due to “coughing”, King Alexander and Lisnagar Fortune for “running a temperature” and Did I Ask You That with an “infection”.

The stewards also ordered racecourse veterinary officers to run routine tests on five of their underperforming runners, one of whom (Sea Of Sands) was reported “clinically abnormal”. For balance, however, the trainer has also had 15 winners since Christmas Day, six of which came – as if resolved – on New Year’s Day.

My take is there might be a low-level problem but analysing it with any accuracy – or responding to it as a punter – especially with a yard of that scale, the details of whose environmental set-up and routines you’d need to know, is a fool’s errand.

Also, whilst State Man has clearly underperformed for some reason, I can’t have it that flagship defeats suffered by Lossiemouth and Ballyburn in any way qualify. The latter’s out-speeding, as a stayer, by Sir Gino on goodish ground on a flat, speed-favouring, right-handed track like Kempton was broadly predictable, and will be discussed in the third of my Yuletide triptych of columns.

There are – as ever, in the great uncertainty that is race analysis, no matter how assured we might feel in our argument – other potential explanations for State Man’s defeat. An obvious one is, despite having now raced 17 times, that he had never before encountered ground without any cut in it. The times on the last day at Leopardstown attest to ‘good’ going. Perhaps he couldn’t handle it?

It's also worth acknowledging – more for the record than anything pertinent to this performance – that State Man has never before been exposed to such a forensic end-to-end pace interrogation. Even his defeat by Constitution Hill in the 2023 Champion Hurdle was more a demonstration of the winner’s turn of foot from the home turn.

In that great rival’s absence, State Man has bossed a sub-standard division. If Christmas brought one certainty, it’s that this landscape has changed. Which returns us to Brighterdaysahead, and my pride in getting this far into this column without yet cursing the existence of the Mares’ Hurdle.

I’m not going to reprise past arguments here (see Road To Cheltenham passim ad nauseam). I’m also a huge fan of the mares’ graded programme as a whole, which continues to improve the profile of the active horse population by encouraging mares to be raced over obstacles, rather than merely bred from after – at most – a run or two in bumpers.

Yet fans of the sport continue to feel frustrated when seeing mares who’ve proved elite enough to have a shot at the Champion Hurdle – and with each year, the list increases – take the easier option at the same meeting.

What the authorities need to answer is whether the positive impact of the programme as a whole is still reliant on a dedicated Grade One specifically at the Cheltenham Festival, or whether that target can be re-sited (or tweaked) and still have the same impact?

Jockey Club Racecourses considered excluding Grade One winners from the Mares’ Hurdle when making their revisions to the Festival programme for 2025, but correctly concluded this would exclude too many and fatally undermine the reformed race. Their broader process also starkly exposed how difficult it would be to find a replacement race that would not cannibalise a different, pre-existing contest.

However, the race conditions for the Mares’ Hurdle could be formed more precisely than was proposed, such as excluding mares ‘rated above X’, or mares that have ‘won an open Grade One in the past 18 months’ (i.e. this stipulation would exclude novice and mare-only victories) – as discussed variously on X and elsewhere in recent days. Yet this could generate the undesirable consequence of deterring mares from participating against geldings, full stop, and not just at the Festival. There is nothing to compel an elite mare to run in the Champion Hurdle.

Furthermore, were Britain to move this race, or alter its conditions, there would be nothing to stop another jurisdiction – Ireland or France – developing a calendar-clashing alternative more akin to the original (mutually destructive though that would be). Contrary to perception, this issue is not as easy to solve as it seems.

So, we are condemned to repeat history. In 2025, it seems the role played by Lossiemouth in 2024 and Honeysuckle in 2023 will be taken by Brighterdaysahead. Both trainer Gordon Elliott and Kennedy have spoken of her Champion Hurdle ability, but the former started backing off that position just as the latter started to come forward with it after her Morgiana success.

On Sunday, Elliott insisted the Mares’ Hurdle would be her target, albeit laughingly, but then seemed to become less entrenched in that position with every subsequent media encounter – and there were many.

  “If she was beaten today, we’d have certainly gone for the Mares’ Hurdle. At least now, I think she’s entitled… we’ll consider the Champion Hurdle but… I’d still favour the Mares’ Hurdle.” 

So, it was left to , when – whilst stating that an entry would be made for the Champion – he was unmoved by any argument against the Mares’ Hurdle. “We’d like a winner, a winner at Cheltenham,” he said, whilst also stressing the importance of supporting the mares’ programme on behalf of the breed.

Yet amusingly, he also added: “Listen, this year [the plan was] she was going chasing. I was going chasing with her; Gordon was going chasing with her. But in a democracy, one vote beat the two and she stayed hurdling. Mike was staying hurdling!” All eyes on the other O’Leary, then, for a change…

Should Brighterdaysahead run in the Champion Hurdle? Clearly, as the horse with the best form at the trip this season – in my opinion and that of some, but not all, others – and who has beaten the titleholder twice, the answer must be yes. It seems absurd to be debating it, but that’s where we are.

The best argument against it was most succinctly put by my X correspondent, Rover, who said: 

This is a point worth considering. Brighterdaysahead has just turned six years of age and boasts the physique of a chaser. She needed to be ridden hard on Sunday over a trip that’s palpably her minimum. Although she appeared to be comfortable at all stages, efforts of that calibre exact a huge physical levy. Horses can’t flirt with the dark side too often without potentially sacrificing their longevity and enthusiasm.

There are also the complexities of a repeat execution – especially when the enemy knows what to expect.

When discussing this in at Leopardstown, my co-presenter Ruby Walsh felt they would be easy to replicate in a Champion Hurdle when I wondered whether a flat track is an easier stage on which to implement such tactics, compared with Cheltenham’s undulations and its particular attendant pressures. Clearly, he would know!

Yet additionally, there’s a good chance the Festival is played out on testing ground, as it has the last twice. That could be an issue for King Of Kingsfield, whose connections are vehement about him needing a sound surface to operate at his best. He ran well below expectations on heavy in last term’s County Hurdle, finishing 14th at a starting-price of 4/1.

How deep into the race would he be able to take Brighterdaysahead in the event of testing ground? Would she have to take over sooner than ideal, thus placing a target on her back for Constitution Hill to run at? We know he loves a fast-run race, too, when he’s on song – remember the 2022 Supreme. (Never forget.)

Of course, he’d have to concede 7lb to the mare, too, which is where arguments about what each of these talented hurdlers achieved over Christmas gets interesting – and people have their differing opinions. Inevitably, when rating such a lop-sided contest with such a strong determining tactical factor as the Neville Hotels Hurdle, a broad range of numbers could be argued for the winner.

After settling on a mark of 167 for Brighterdaysahead, the Timeform bods must be risking a midnight visitation from the be-chained ghost of Phil Bull, muttering about the perils of miserliness and rating Sir Gino’s chase debut a mere 159 – although shortly afterwards the Ghost of Christmas Past will recall soft-focussed scenes of happiness with Master Oats’ rating of 183.

Yet even at this most cautious end of her viable rating span – which you could straight-facedly argue could be up to 10lb more even without remotely taking literally the disparity to Winter Fog – Brighterdaysahead is still the fourth-best mare in their annals’ history.

So, it’s highly relevant to ask where Constitution Hill is at right now? Clearly, in a light-years better place than he was a month ago, but even the most positive view of his form and the most negative of the mare’s has the latter achieving more – and that’s before her allowance comes into play.

The questions this great hurdler must answer are: how much (if any) improvement he can find on his Christmas Hurdle success, and even whether he’ll be around to face her down (if necessary) in March? As Mullins observed, smiling with cold teeth (and not for the first time): “We all have to get there, don’t we?”

In Nicky Henderson’s post-race interview – which was almost statesmanlike (no pun intended) in comparison with the combative reactions of Constitution Hill’s jockey Nico de Boinville and owner Michael Buckley – he admitted to having had to “force it a little bit” during the last three weeks in order to get their horse to the races.

“I did have to be a little bit harder on him than I would have liked to have been, or would normally probably have been,” he said, adding that during the race he’d been “frightened” that the pace set by progressive four-year-old Burdett Road would find out any shortfall in fitness. No coincidence there – it was surely Harry Cobden’s intention on the eventual third, who produced a clear career-best performance to date in the process, to expose any such weakness.

“It would find most horses out that weren’t virtually one hundred per cent,” Henderson said. “He did have a good blow going to last but [Nico said] he had enough horse to get him home.

“We knew we were going to have a battle today… I couldn’t have got him any fitter. He had to go to a racecourse… and we had to get it over and done with. He was ready enough. But it’s only been the last three weeks that we’ve got the feeling that he’s nearly there – and I don’t think I ever seen him look better than that.”

For independent third-party corroboration, step forward Racing TV pundit on the day, Megan Nicholls, whose on-air confidence in Constitution Hill increased on pre-race inspection when she reported “definition in his hamstring and through his middle”. Positive expectations were more widespread, too, with the market having spoken in the horse’s favour since declarations.

Asked afterwards whether the horse would head straight to the Champion Hurdle, Henderson acknowledged the race he identified as “the Unibet Hurdle” (#ad) as the only possible stepping-stone. (This is the Bula, of course, but I’ll even take “the International” over an historic race entirely losing its identity to that of its sponsor.)

“We did have to push quite hard,” the trainer reiterated. “He couldn’t afford to come in here undercooked in any way, but he probably was and there’s improvement. I’d love to run him again… But if [the Bula] is too soon, then I’m afraid it’s too soon – and he’ll tell us.”

Looking at his overall profile and in the context of having been “pushed’ to get to Kempton, it must be heavy odds-against Constitution Hill pitching up on Trials Day. As mentioned in the , he’s now eight years of age and yet that was merely his ninth start under Rules. It was the two-years-younger Lossiemouth’s eleventh outing – and she was consciously cotton-woolled by Willie Mullins in the first half of last season.

Only three times in Constitution Hill’s career has he run twice within the space of about a month: his first two starts as a novice (his debut more substantial than his next), his first two starts in open company (the 2023 Christmas Hurdle better than his seasonal debut in the Fighting Fifth), and at the Cheltenham and Liverpool Festivals later that same season (when in the Aintree Hurdle he either felt the effects of his previous exertions, or else suggested 2m4f was beyond his optimum, or both).

So, even before the “trials and tribulations” of the past 12 months, this was a horse Henderson tends to campaign sparingly – even as a novice, eschewing the stable’s well-trodden path to the Supreme by starting out at Sandown rather than more familiar haunts. Although the horse is famously laidback, even snoozing pre-race in his trackside box, we’ve also been told he takes a lot out of himself when he runs.

The good news regarding his immediate wellbeing is that his trainer reported him to be sound at the trot, albeit typically unprepossessing in his gait, the day after his historic third Christmas Hurdle success – the first horse ever to achieve that hat-trick.

His characteristic so-what demeanour was also in evidence. “He was very underwhelmed by the whole occasion,” Henderson observed, fondly, last Friday. “I think he enjoyed yesterday though… He just had something about him yesterday, whereas this morning he was just back to being Constitution Hill: so, what?”

Let’s assume we don’t see him again until March, therefore. How much better, if at all, might he be then? At least a little, it’s reasonable to infer from both his interrupted preparation and his connections’ comments. 

And it’s worth acknowledging that what Constitution Hill achieved last Thursday is better than anything his closest rivals have yet achieved specifically at Cheltenham, even if it is impossible – for his third outing in succession – to rate this form within a stone of his peak in that strongly run Supreme of 2022, when beating a disadvantageously ridden Jonbon by 22 lengths. It was also almost as much shy of his 2023 Champion Hurdle triumph.

Yet it was undoubtedly form that can be rated superior to his more visually pleasing nine-and-a-half-length defeat of Rubaud 12 months ago, because he faced down two more substantial rivals. That is also why connections of Lossiemouth – and, to a lesser extent, Burdett Road – should try again. Indeed, they must.

Although Constitution Hill travelled like his old self, daringly let fly at the fourth, and settled the race with a less awe-inspiring but far more devastatingly efficient leap two out, he had to roll his sleeves up approaching the last.

It seems likely that surgery to augment his breathing was the most consequential element in his improvement, his gallop flop at Kempton in February having been notable for a touch of thick-windedness, as . The upside to his setbacks – a respiratory infection followed by colic – was perhaps that they granted his trainer an opportunity to make this necessary tweak under the bonnet.

The former champion ultimately repelled the staying-on Lossiemouth by two-and-a-half lengths. This is by some chalk the closest any rival has got over two miles. There was half a length more back to Sharjah over 2m4f at Aintree, but otherwise he had previously put at least nine lengths between himself and his nearest pursuer.

Lossiemouth was on the back foot from the very first hurdle at Kempton, jumping slowly and airily, and was pushed along briefly on landing by Townend, as she was after the next as well. Although she sat slightly off the strong pace, she was palpably operating at full revs just to stay in touch.

Meanwhile, Constitution Hill was loving it, lobbing around the home turn and smoothly joining Burdett Road on the lead two out, outmatching him fractionally in the air. Cobden raised his whip as the winner passed by, but immediately put it down without using it, presumably sensing his mount was irretrievably eclipsed. Parallel with Lossiemouth at the final flight, Burdett Road then crashed through it and worryingly dragged his hind legs along the ground on landing.

Only beaten nine lengths despite this self-destructive error, his proximity has been cited as holding down the form to some degree, but it should be acknowledged he’s a Listed winner on the Flat and a young horse, still entitled to be improving. He also had a solo up front, albeit setting an honest pace.

Furthermore, the talented Lump Sum – who’d upgraded his form when eight lengths behind Constitution Hill’s super-sub, Sir Gino, in the Fighting Fifth – paid for living with the pace until the home turn, when he weakened markedly. By contrast, Burdett Road remained in the game until approaching the last which strongly suggests he’s a graded performer in the right circumstances. Heavy ground would surely be a negative, mind.

Yet despite the disappointment it immediately garnered – a much-anticipated duel lost from pretty much the first hurdle – it is Lossiemouth’s effort that demands a rematch – in a different context and with lessons learned. Yes, she was out of her comfort zone on good-to-soft ground around a flat, speed-favouring track like Kempton. But that need not be the case in the Champion Hurdle, on a track that rewards relative stamina and in ground conditions at least recent history suggests will be more testing.

These days, we have the means to substantiate such arguments with facts – and .

Using sectionals from the first mile in five of Lossiemouth’s preceding six races (there being no official data from Punchestown’s Champion Four-Year-Old Hurdle in May 2023), Blake demonstrated that, from the first furlong marker to the first mile marker, she had never before experienced a pace remotely akin to Boxing Day.

“She literally ran the first mile of the Christmas Hurdle around 85 lengths faster than she covered the equivalent distance in the Hatton’s Grace Hurdle – 85 lengths!!” Blake wrote. “The closest she has come to running that fast in the first half of a race was the Triumph Hurdle where she still ran approximately 28 lengths slower than she did at Kempton on Thursday.”

Whilst Townend’s instant reaction was that his mount was “struggling way too early”, the data suggests an answer to his question of “why we underperformed here today”.

. “The minute the tape went up, I thought this mare hasn’t turned up today. She just couldn’t keep up over the trip, Paul was niggling her the whole time,” he said.

“She couldn’t keep up with the other two horses either – the three of them. She just seemed to be out of her comfort zone and we would have never have felt that with her, with her pedigree and everything. She’s got plenty of speed in her pedigree. However, maybe that is how it is.”

Two days later, with time to digest, he took a different view. “If you remember in the Triumph Hurdle, she ran away with Paul off the top of the hill, hit the front, she was always very keen,” . “So, all our training has been to settle her back… teaching her to settle rather than having her as free as she was as a juvenile. 

“So, I’d say when she jumped off the other day, she hasn’t gone that pace early on in a race since the Triumph Hurdle and she was just caught flat-footed. I loved the way she stayed on all the way to the winning line… She had every opportunity to fall out the back of the television and she didn’t. She stayed on.

“She’s come home fine. The next day we run, we might just give her a good sharp bit of work beforehand and it’ll be up to Paul then to settle her in the race. I just think over a different track… Kempton is sharp and flat, and she’s won twice around Cheltenham… a different stage. I think she’ll be a bigger threat come Cheltenham.” 

To his credit, even in the immediate aftermath of the Christmas Hurdle, Mullins wasn’t intending to turn tail and run from the Champion Hurdle. “We’ve been planning two years for this,” he said then. “Today is the first bit of a negative response to that sort of goal that I’ve had.”

Quite right. Not only was this the closest any horse has ever got to Constitution Hill, de Boinville needed to use his whip four times. Plus, Mullins has now zeroed in on how Lossiemouth’s experience at Kempton – where she showed a bundle of grit to stay involved – and his team’s own homework can sharpen up her jumping for a test that’s more likely to be run to suit.

“If we examine the last two renewals of the Champion Hurdle in the same way,” Blake wrote, “the pace set by the leader for the seven furlongs after the completion of the first furlong was 1:46.09 in 2023 and 1:52.04 in 2024. In short, the Champion Hurdle is far more likely to be run at a pace that Lossiemouth [has] proven to be well within her comfort zone.”

Of course, the potential hitch in this theory emerged subsequently to the publication of that piece, when Elliott remastered the pace of the Neville Hotels Hurdle to favour Brighterdaysahead. If democracy again rules chez Gigginstown House, then the Champion Hurdle would be run much faster than for the past two years. But in that scenario, wouldn’t Lossiemouth defect to the Mares’ Hurdle?

Perhaps, therefore, the mares’ programme hath given us something whilst the Mares’ Hurdle hath taken away? Namely, it has developed a deepening strength in this division to the extent that two proper ones have come along at the same time. For Lossiemouth in particular, there are no easy options.

Go to the Mares’ and face Brighterdaysahead (at a trip that might suit the latter even better), or go to the Champion and face Constitution Hill? I know which way I’d jump. And with State Man under a cloud, Lossiemouth is perhaps more likely to benefit from the services of Townend – and even if he stays loyal to the titleholder, her race history says Danny Mullins would get the call-up, the Closutton crowd tending to value such precedents.

For me, this boils down to a bet on Lossiemouth at 7/1 on ante-post terms. Now, William Hill and 888Bet ushered in the new year by going non-runner-no-bet on all 28 Festival races, so if you’re the type of punter who likes that safety-net (and why not?) then you could take 7/2. (She’s actually a bit longer than you might imagine at 5/4 NRNB for the Mares’ Hurdle, by the way.) But those bookmakers offering 7/1 are conspicuously long, in my opinion. I’d even take 6/1 elsewhere if you can’t get on with Bet365 or BetMGM.

Additional note: Those (insert “fools”) following my words closely will note that I nominated Brighterdaysahead as the likeliest winner of the Champion Hurdle when I asked Ruby, Andrew Blair White and Josh Stacey for their shooting-from-the-hip positions on the race minutes after the Neville Hotels Hurdle in our Leopardstown special.

Full disclosure: I have personally backed both Brighterdaysahead and Lossiemouth in real life for the Champion Hurdle. However, I find it difficult to advocate that others also back the former when the vibes are (mostly) that she’ll run elsewhere and her NRNB odds have no juice in them.

Contrastingly, connections have confirmed – twice – that Lossiemouth runs in the big one, unless something dents her profile between now and then, and at 7/1 I think her odds underestimate her chance. I still believe Brighterdaysahead has the ability to win, but she must both show up and get the set-up she needs, therefore 5/1 ante-post is less attractive to me as a position to recommend to others.

In terms of other players in these divisions, Golden Ace was beaten for the second time this season, this time behind new Stayers’ player Lucky Place, but again shaped as though a drop in trip – particularly on soft ground but perhaps either way – would suit her better.

Those literalists who underestimate Brighterdaysahead on the basis of her defeat, when conceding 5lb in a glacially run Dawn Run at last year’s Festival, use the winner Golden Ace to undermine her. This ill-conceived logic met its riposte at Leopardstown with a show-not-tell of why a race that foregrounded sprint speed, rather than end-to-end pace, would not have seen Elliott’s mare to best effect.

Furthermore, it looks evident that Brighterdaysahead is a more mature customer than the one who pulled too hard at Cheltenham; it’s also conceivable that time has added a bit more strength to her impressive stature.

Whereas Buveur D’Air once successfully abandoned novice-chasing for the Champion Hurdle at this juncture in the season, I suspect Sir Gino has now crossed the rubicon. Ditto Marine Nationale, for this season at least, with his best chasing effort yet when third to front-running Solness in the Paddy’s Rewards Club Chase.

However, I wouldn’t fall off my chair were last year’s Supreme winner Slade Steel given a Champion entry when the race closes on 14 January after failing to win his first two starts over fences.

He ran a faster overall time than State Man at Cheltenham, although that was overwhelmingly due to the novices’ event being well run whereas the Champion Hurdle runners had a fag-break mid-race, slowing it right down before sprinting (relatively speaking, in testing ground) to the finish.

Back to the gurney. Although those who used to dominate the early season skirmishes in the staying division have moved on, either to the retirement home or the veterans’ ward, the next generation who were in action over Christmas have something to find on Teahupoo – and he’s their age or younger.

Yet perhaps we can take a cup of kindness from the continuing emergence of Lucky Place as a potential fresh challenger? 

At Ascot just before Christmas, Crambo became the latest horse to win a second Long Walk Hurdle – in his case, bouncing back to the peak level of form he’d shown only there 12 months ago. Behind Teahupoo in the Stayers’ Hurdle, he was beaten at the top of the hill, long before the second last, in a race staged at a stop-start gallop prior to never going well in the Liverpool Hurdle behind Strong Leader.

Fergal O’Brien believes Crambo left his season behind at Ascot in 2023, due to having had hard races at Haydock (when poorly positioned) and then duelling with Paisley Park, a battle-hardened veteran defending his title at perhaps his favourte track. This season, the trainer had also backed off an intended seasonal debut at Newbury when he felt the horse wasn’t right and, as a result, had worried this run might be needed.

It just about wasn’t. Beauport – marking time over hurdles, the Grand National in mind, after being raised 12lb by the official handicapper for his seasonal debut wide-margin victory over fences at Ascot – was allowed such a soft lead (despite often jumping guessily and big) that he was still in front at the last.

Crambo had sat closer to him than head runner-up Hiddenvalley Lake, whose stamina for three miles Henry de Bromhead and Darragh O’Keeffe might not – like me! – have been bullish about. First, the winner and then the second passed Beauport on the run-in, the latter inching inexorably closer until the line intervened – although Crambo seemed to pull out a shade extra to hold him.

Blueking D’Oroux was in the mix at the last until yet again failing to stay, whereas Kateira would have been fourth at least but for having more than a fleeting look at the wrong side of the wing on the approach to the last and paying for her break in concentration with a serious error, losing her hind legs on landing.

Instead, The Wallpark – on his first start outside handicap company – ground into fourth, having been badly outpaced on the home turn. He’s no Sire De Grugy yet.

Shoot First made an absolute Horlicks of the second last when belatedly rallying after being ridden along from four out. Fellow Irish raider Eagle Fang was keen but still going well on the home turn before appearing not to stay.

Finally, Strong Leader – who was racing right-handed for only the second time in his career – jumped with trademark scruffiness at times and was perhaps the first beaten, cutting out suddenly when ridden along on landing four out despite having seemingly travelled fine into it. A breathing issue was subsequently discovered, so Olly Murphy plans to send him to a specialist to address the issue.

Seven days later at Leopardstown, with blinkers reapplied, Home By The Lee added to Joseph O’Brien’s excellent Christmas by registering his second win in the Savills Christmas Hurdle. He only had to run to form to do so, albeit an element of unpredictability attends his reputation – perhaps more than is fair to apply.

In this race last year, he was consigned to make his own running and didn’t enjoy the task, but when fitted with the headgear mustered three high-lass efforts on the bounce at Cheltenham, Aintree and Auteuil.

He’d returned this season gadget-free yet still crafted victory over shorter in the Lismullen Hurdle, but O’Brien was taking no chances here. The race developed relatively predictably from his perspective, habitually right-jumping Asterion Forlonge and (more sustainedly) Hewick cutting out the pace duties with chief rival Bob Olinger floating around at rear.

Noble Yeats, whom Emmet Mullins had warned would need the run, maintained his interest only until the first, after which he was niggled along and regularly required persuasion to stay in touch. He would be pulled up before two out.

In rear, outsider Rocky’s Diamond made the first of a burgeoning collection of mistakes at that same initial hurdle – flattening the fifth and blundering four out the particular lowlights. That he managed eventually to finish third is a comment in itself on the depth in this division.

Hewick moved on after three out when smooth-travelling Sandor Clegane – himself sporting first-time blinkers – moved up menacingly on the outer whilst Bob Olinger cut a stylish figure making ground on the outside. Meanwhile, Home By The Lee was scrubbed along and lost his pitch on the home turn.

All change in the straight. Sandor Clegane was nudged up to join Hewick but found nil as Bob Olinger overtook him just before the last. However, the three of them had skiddled about so much that Home By The Lee was already staging his traditional rally and ran past them all from landing.

Can it be fourth time lucky for the winner, now aged ten, at Cheltenham? We know age can be no barrier to victory given Sire Du Berlais won it aged eleven, but that was an era when most of his rivals were also nearing their best-by dates. Recently, it’s been more usual for younger legs – six and seven-year-olds – to take the spoils.

That said, Home By The Lee managed third last year in a race whose stop-start nature would not have suited him ideally. Having been outpaced on the home turn, he fought doughtily – reaching for the last and staying on well – but wasn’t well enough equipped to deal either with Teahupoo or Flooring Porter in second.

Perhaps the ever-underestimated Lucky Place can be the answer? Having been one of the few horses to fly the flag at last year's Festival for a beleaguered Seven Barrows when a staying-on fourth behind Langer Dan in last year’s Coral Cup, he’s bagged a brace of Grade Twos over intermediate trips so far this season, with Henderson identifying the Stayers’ Hurdle as the plan. Having always shaped like an improver for a trip, 16/1 best underestimates him.

Langer Dan himself took a step backwards from his debut, going carefully into four out and squeezed along once he’d righted himself on landing but he could only hang in there until the home turn when he was swiftly beaten but not knocked about from there. Still, we wait…

To end, let’s consider some potential discipline switchers. Corbetts Cross, whom Ruby and I suggested might defect in our pre-Christmas episodes, provided further evidence for this case over Christmas, as did last year’s fourth Buddy One. However, those advocating for Ballyburn to become a staying hurdler on the basis of defeat by Sir Gino need to find more sticking power.

Advised 19/12/24: Majborough at 5/1 (Bet 365) for the Mypensionexpert Arkle Chase

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