Champion Hurdle Binocular disappoints

Only one Champion Hurdle prospect was in action during the last week where Binocular was the centre of attention and didn’t impress everybody when outclassing two inferior rivals at Sandown and McCoy came back and reported he is still not giving him the same feel as last season so maybe that hard race he endured in the Champion Hurdle has really taken the edge off him.

Nicky Henderson was more bullish than the jockey about his performance and two recent third-place finishers in the Champion Hurdle in Brave Inca and Punjabi has lifted the crown the following season so it can be done but I have to say that of the five horses priced at single-figures for the race, he would be vying for the one I least fancy alongside Khyber Kim.

The more and more I think about this race, although I feel our ante-post each-way interest Punjabi will run his usual good solid race, I am coming down to the thinking that Solwhit will win if it comes up on the soft side of good-to-soft and Go Native could defy the stats if it were to come up the other way round – those stats being the terrible record of the reigning Supreme Novices’ Hurdle and Christmas Hurdle winner.

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With Philip Fenton finally confirming Dunguib to the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, it doesn’t look like we will have any novice representation in this season’s race so it will be interesting to see if he is left in at the next forfeit stage to back up what they have said.