Easier to train apes. Can you imagine our top trainers or WM not giving their horses an 'easy' first time up.
And we won't find out anything about is jumping becase they will crawl round and sprint. Makes no sense to me.
All this b*ll*cks about needing one more week. Absolutely bonkers. If he is competitive he could leave the CH for both himself and HF in Ireland.
Hope WM thinks it's too much soon for HF and skips the race.

Makes no sense to me. The horse has always been very short with PP for this race even when the trainer clearly stated the Limestone Lad was his likely target.
He said wants the horse as fresh as he can for the CH do you think he may think he can win this?
Otherwise why not go for the easier race where he could win without comng off the bridle. Odd, very odd.

Just going on the form in the book CV,their is evidence to sat Solwhit is not as good as he was before his problems,i just interprit it different to you,no worries mate.

At the end of the day HF is clearly a talented horse and really could be anything,even the next superstar,that i do agree with,he has shown signs that he could be.That is how he stands at this moment,the rest is yet to be seen.But I look at his form and dont see any form on decent going against what i consider to be a top 2m CH horse,thats basically what i am saying here mate.
He is certainly exciting though,thats for sure.

Hurricane Fly will win the Champion Hurdle - mark my words!

CVByrne - you are a dummy! lol You really do need to watch racing rather than listening to your friends. Muppet!

My opinion, no solid info but they think a lot of flat out and he's 100% going for the irish arkle.

I think mikael will run in the irish arkle too. Mullins said he's undecided which race to run him in the irish arkle or the pj moriarty. But the former gives them a  chance of another run, the latter doesn't.

Anyway this is the champion hurdle thread.

Hurrciane Fly is better than Mikeal D'Haguenet but Mikeal was a serious tool before his injury.

Binocular all the way for me. Cant wait.

I've mentioned this before but I do have reservations about Hurricane Fly as regards how the race will be run and the demands of a competitive championship race over the course. He may well be the best horse in the race, for natural ability, but I think he's worth taking on, even for the frame. He's got plenty of speed and enough stamina to outgun a strong stayer in Solwhit, but will he be suited by a relentless pace on a quicker surface, at a difficult track that he's not encountered before? All his main rivals have proven form over the conditions and it's a definite concern for me, as this disadvantage shouldn't be under-estimated.

overturns run today surely gives peddlers a big boost as pc is blantley a better horse than overturn.

Binocular on a track that doesn't suit on ground that doesn't suit wins easily with no real questions asked. I think they will be pretty happy with that. Have to say that's the best I have seen Binocular look today in the paddock. He is the perfect hurdling machine.

i genuinely thought binocular would be beaten by 2 maybe 3 horses today, and i would still have fancied him for champion hurdle. after that performance i really fancy him for it, unbelievable

lets hope they all stay fit and well.
C Hdle brewing up into a cracking race.

What a load of cr@p on this thread from the usual suspects .. pocket talkers anonymous CVByrne, Fully Fick Tw@t and sintonian .. the Three Hapless Muskateers.

well you can rule peddlers cross out if you dont think starlucks up to much. it was obvious that was not a real performance by binocular at newbury and peddlers cross was beat home to stay in front of starluck.

PC did have to be ridden hard to win at Newbury, but the race turned into something of a sprint after no more than a reasonable early pace, which certainly wouldn't have been ideal for PC. Under the circumstances, he did well to win, imo.

PC is a very interesting contender for the CH and I feel very positive about his chances. However, marginally I still prefer Binocular. The pace was reasonably fast in the Christmas Hurdle yesterday, as it was in the 2010 CH, and in both cases Binocular looked absolutely top notch and won with relative ease. In both races, Binocular looked capable of pulling out more if needed and that has to be the mark of a very high class horse given the true pace of some the races he has now contested and won. He looks a remarkably good hurdler to me when there is a decent pace to run off.

Yesterday also eased some of my concerns about just how important good ground is in relation to Binocular's chances of winning a second CH. Good ground would clearly be a bonus for the horse, but yesterday provided some further evidence that a softer surface wouldn't necessarily compromise his chances of retaining his crown in March.

It would fantastic to watch if the likes of PC, Menorah and HF can inject enough quality into the race in March to stretch Binocular to his limits - I emphasise, we really haven't seen those limits exposed yet with the fully physically mature, peak fitness Binocular.

Looking at the horses in the paddock at Newbury you could see Peddler's cross was very fit. I'm not saying he can't improve on that but he was fit. Binocular on the other hand was big and heavy looking and I will be honest I backed him but was not suprised of the outcome. I have said before in this thread looking at Binocular yesterday he looks to be better than I have ever seen him. He was pretty fit yesterday and I think the result proved that. One thing I will say is that they did not go that fast. I think the time will prove that and visually you could see they were not going too quick and Binocular at one point looked like he might go on in front of overturn. What I am most happy to see is that he's jumping consistently quickly. I don't know why he wasn't last year but whatever they did to get him right deserves a lot of credit. He was absolutely electric yesterday. Better ground plus Cheltenham plus a fast pace all will play into Binoculars strengths.

dont believe binocular has a problem operating on soft ground or flat tracks myself but he surely prefers good ground at cheltenham so his finishing kick can be maintained up the hill,looked really good in yesterdays race and the speed over some of those hurdles was amazing...bring on march as is shaping up to be one hell of a champion hurdle this year.

It will be interesting to see what the TS ratings are for yesterday's race. On the face of it, the pace was reasonably brisk for that type of small field race on soft ground. The time was nearly 3 seconds faster than Ski Sunday recorded in the earlier big field handicap hurdle and nearly 14 seconds faster than the juveniles recorded. The time was over 6 seconds faster than Go Native recorded in the 2009 renewal on ground that was perceived to be marginally quicker.