IF ONE race stands out above all the others at the Cheltenham Festival this week, it is surely the Champion Hurdle. The Gold Cup, for sure, boasts an attractive mix with former champions in Denman and Kauto Star, the current champion in Imperial Commander and the young pretender in Long Run, but the Champion Hurdle has rarely boasted a field of such depth and class, with Menorah, Peddlers Cross and Hurricane Fly leading the challenge to the brilliant Binocular.
Richard Johnson has an obvious yardstick by which to measure the qualities of a Champion hurdler. In 2002, he and the big grey machine, Rooster Booster, outran and outlasted a high-class field to take the crown back to the Somerset yard of the unassuming Philip Hobbs and, while reluctant to relagate his all-time favourite horse to second best, Johnson will say that Menorah, second favourite for the race this year, is “probably” the best hurdler he’s ever ridden. “Menorah is more straightforward than Rooster Booster and, though he’s still young, he deserves his chance in the race.”
Menorah takes an unbeaten track record to Cheltenham on Tuesday, which counts for much in the eyes of the experts. His three victories at the course began with the Supreme Novices Hurdle at the Festival a year ago and includes the Greatwood earlier this season, but it was the way he disposed of the hitherto unbeaten Cue Card on his most recent outing in December that confirmed him as a serious challenger for the Champion Hurdle. In the wake of that win, he was briefly installed as favourite, until Binocular reasserted his claims. Johnson still numbers the defending champion as his main danger.
Though the winners have not flowed quite so freely in the past couple of Festivals, Johnson still has one statistical hold over Tony McCoy, his perennial nemesis in the race for the jockeys’ title. He is the only current rider who has won all four of the major championship races at the Festival. McCoy has won all but the Stayers’ Hurdle; Ruby Walsh all bar the Champion Hurdle. Johnson began his collection with one of the most memorable and unlikely victories of all, in the 1999 Stayers’ Hurdle aboard Anzum, who must have passed half the field in the final slog to the line. It was Johnson’s first Festival winner and few of his tally of 15 have been as sweet.
His Gold Cup came on Looks Like Trouble, Rooster Booster won the Champion Hurdle and the brilliant and enigmatic Flagship Uberalles took the honours in the Champion Chase. The trick now is to start all over again, which, says the jockey, is harder.
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“At Cheltenham, every race is a beat faster than you’re used to,” he says. “That’s partly because the best horses are out there and the racing is unbelievably competitive and partly because the ground is faster than most courses.
“But you can worry too much about tactics and everything else. The best way of staying out of trouble is to be riding the best horse.”
In tackling the toughest task yet in his young career, Menorah could not have a better companion in the saddle. By common consent, Johnson is a supreme hurdles rider, strong and busy, rarely outbattled in a tight finish. But the unbeaten northern challenger, Peddlers Cross, the supremely talented Irish champion, Hurricane Fly, and Binocular will ask Menorah a series of stiff questions in a race traditionally run at breakneck speed.
If Binocular produces the sort of devastating turn of foot that proved decisive a year ago, the rest will be vying for the place money. But Menorah has shown an ability to accelerate off a decent cruising speed himself and a nuggety will to win, two critical qualities in any champion hurdler.
Though he regards Menorah as the pick of his rides, Johnson will also look forward to partnering Wishfull Thinking in the RSA Chase and Captain Chris in the two-and-a-half mile Jewson Novices Chase on Thursday, and the former top-class hurdler, Snap Tie, who returns for the first time since making a winning chase debut over this course nearly two seasons ago.
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“If you come away from the Festival with one winner, you’re happy enough,” says the jockey. More than happy if that winner was the Champion hurdler.