Champion Hurdle Betting – Can we rule Binocular out?

Our guest blogger and Cheltenham expert Joel Neasham casts his eye over one of the more popular Cheltenham races – The Champion Hurdle. Will he lump on Binocular? This is Part One of his report.

As Cheltenham nears my inability to pick a horse and stick with it grows more and more. I’m going to start my Cheltenham preview with the race that highlights this inability more than any other – The Champion Hurdle.

So far I have waxed lyrical and told anyone that will listen that Peddlers Cross will win The Champion Hurdle. I then said exactly the same about Menorah. Then Hurricane Fly. Then Binocular. And then Oscar Whisky. The problem I have is that every time one of the above horses runs 9/10 I find myself impressed. I can’t see the winner coming from outside of this quintet and I’m now going to attempt to narrow the five down to one. Somehow.

Let’s start with Menorah, the winner of last years Supreme Novice. The horse is obviously a class act and you only have to look at the list of horses he has beaten to realise that. Obviously winning the Supreme Novice isn’t a bad place to start, but it is what Menorah has done since that has impressed me the most; fair enough he got turned over by a neck by General Miller a month after his Cheltenham success but fast forward 7 month to last November where he won quite a competitive race leaving General Miller a good 45 lengths or so behind as well as the likes of Any Given Day and Get Me Out Of Here.

It was however, Menorah’s last outing that impressed me the most where he came up against two new up and coming superstars in the form of Silviniaco Conti and the much talked about Cue Card, and smashed the pair of them. That was when he well and truly threw his hat into the Champion Hurdle ring.

Part 2 will be released this week – Stay tuned!