My tent or yours...Champion hurdle...no no no

has to be considered after that demolition...

owner has jezki to go to war with in the supreme so chances i'd say and has to be under consideration with the field in the champion lacking any real depth imo

would be a fascinating contender to hurricane fly

Would back him if he ran in champion that was a serious performance giving Cotton mill weight, I hope not tho as am on for supreme and he looks a certainty to me

McCoy said afterwards that he wouldn't be going for CH this season and will be aimed at the Supreme.

Yeah just read that now, Henderson said "We hadn't thought about the Champion Hurdle; we'd been looking at the Supreme." I don't really like the way he spoke in the past tense there!!

Hope he does go for the champion,as im on jezki ! Slow time there today - 109 topspeed fig. Good to see jezki form upheld again in the deloitte - still prefer him over MTOY 4 the supreme.

We have the same conversation every year when a novice, whether it be hurdles or fences, dots up. Stick to the novice route or go in against the big boys. IMHO, JP will like the fact he has 2 bullets to fire in the Supreme.

My honest opinion is that he should stick to the Supreme, and if they really want to throw him in against open company then send him to the Irish 2m race after Cheltenham.

I think they'll go for the CH, you can argue about a novice being thrown in amongst the big boys and whether the form is any good, but he's already got the fav. in the supreme, and with MTOY's winning today off 149 without even looking like he was in a race, what's wrong  with having a shot at it, we're not talking about a novice chaser being asked to run in a gruelling gold cup, it won't hurt him, and as someone said above, with what happened earlier in the week it just brings into focus that perhaps you should strike while the irons hot, yes, he may still be a stone odd below HF, but it's worth a shot.

It is imperative that connections do the best thing for the horse. He is a nice prospect and if they keep him right he could be around for a long time and earn a lot of prize money. I expect they will run in the Supreme but he will be made to work much harder there than he was today and we will find out if he is top class then.

What would I do Liam ? Deffo the Supreme as I've backed him for that, pure pocket talking.

In all honesty I do think its the right race for him, Graeme sums it up perfectly.

what mark do people think he has run to today? and how many pounds improvement will be needed to feature in the champion hurdle?

Ive got him doin a 164 alleged, fair to assume the next 3 ran their races, got them doin 149, 140 and 146 respectively. He seemed to blitz them for speed between the last 2, Dark Lover made up a fair bit of ground on him from the last to the line. I still need convincing MTOY can produce owt off the bridle in a truely run Gr1 - Aintree bumper hard to erase

no he didn't punkle because he didn't train large action

Aintree bumper is a good point, as is the fact that he's only had four hurdle races - McCoy might have what happened to Valiramix in CH as 6yo on his mind (I accept he was more experienced and not a novice).

If that awful accident had not happened on Monday, I doubt Champion Hurdle would merit too much discussion even after today's performance - and what happened to Darlan should not have any bearing on what is best for MTOY.

As someone on the horse racing forum pointed out, JP had no problem running both Captain Cee Bee and Binocular in the Supreme a few years back.

Any thoughts as to which one AP would choose to ride?

I'm a staunch believer that novices should stick to novice events come the festival, but I have never been more impressed by a novice hurdler pre-Cheltenham than I was with MTOY today. If I was JP, given the loss of Darlan, I'd be very tempted.

I was blown away by My Tent Or Yours and have three things to add:

Firstly, I would be utterly gobsmacked it McCoy chose Jezki over this one in any race. To have carried a stone more than Get Me Out Of Here did and won a race that looked at least as good more easily would suggest he is a horse with incredible potential over two miles. For a novice to have won like that off 149 is pretty special.

Secondly, I'd have thought losing Darlan would make it more unlikely - not less - that they pitch this one in against Champion Hurdle rivals. I've always thought that novices are technically under-rated (i.e. I think there is less of a gap between them and their championship elders than the ratings scale suggests), but their experience is key. That to me is why running novices out of novice company at the Festival is so risky, and in my opinion, it does increase the chance of bad things happening to them.

Besides, a lot of people laugh at the notion, but there are some that think Binocular has a decent chance in the Champion anyway. I know he divides opinion like few others (and that I'm a supporter, at least of his ability) but based on last year's running, it is beyond ridiculous that he is 16-1 and Hurricane Fly is 2s. If Bino had jumped the last 12 months ago he would, at worst, have been a couple of lengths behind the Fly (and he spotted him that distance throughout the race). Henderson said earlier in the season that he still thinks there is another Champion to be won with him...

Finally, we have seen a lot of so-called Supreme bankers blown out of the water in recent years. Although the race is always a good one, the heavy defeats of late have tended to be put on horses that have been mopping up weakish Graded events on their way to Cheltenham. I'd argue that we have a good bit better notion of how good this one is based on him slamming a strong field of unexposed, progressive horses, with some smart handicappers nicely dotted around to put an absolute value on the race. I'm sure he'll improve for a better pace (he still didn't settle well today), so if he can run to the same level in March he is clearly going to be very, very hard to beat.

harry callaghan
09 Feb 13 21:23

no he didn't punkle because he didn't train large action

Bet you enjoyed that Harry.

If that's the worst clanger I make on this years Cheltenham forum I'll be well happy - better to be wrong about an old fact off the top of my head than what I'm actually staking money on.

I don't subscribe to the run him in a novice race because there is some kind of worry that something bad might happen to him or it might set him back, he's a horse that travels easily through his races so he won't be suffering too much, and what about the possibility that the race may actually provide some valuable experience to him for the few years ahead, and besides, he may be good enough to win it!