Champion Hurdle 2016 - Festival Focus

Nic a Place - Nichols Canyon looks good value to chase home Faugheen in the Champion Hurdle.

With Faugheen’s utter dominance of the Champion Hurdle market there isn’t really an angle in to the race other than trying to find the horses that are going to fill the places in behind him.

The reigning champ looks so far clear of the remainder of the likely field that it almost seems pointless running the race at this point. This is horse racing, and more specifically Cheltenham, though and anything can, and often will, happen.

The only real play I can see in the Champion Hurdle as things stand therefore is to back the horse that spectacularly beat Faugheen at the beginning of the campaign Nichols Canyon, because following his comprehensive defeat to the horse dubbed ‘the machine’ last time out he has drifted out to pretty fair price to pick up the minor honours behind his stable mate.

Many heralded his victory over Faugheen as a fluke and subsequent events have probably proven that to be true, but there’s no denying he’s a top class performer in his own right – his string of Grade 1 wins are testament to that.

In between his two battles with Faugheen this season, he showed battling tenacity akin to the great Hurricane Fly to see off Identity Thief – one of his main place rivals in the Champion Hurdle – over Christmas and scoop another Grade 1 prize.

Joining Willie Mullins as a top class horse off the flat, you’d have to think better ground will aid in a return to his best (won at two of the big Spring festivals last year) and I’m more than happy to draw a line through that last run – his slog in the Leopardstown mud at Christmas can’t have been an ideal prep for a showdown with a horse that could arguably be one of the greatest hurdlers of all time.

The worry is that unlike Arctic Fire, who finished between him and Faugheen last time out, he’s probably going to be ridden to try and win the race rather than simply pick up the pieces once Faugheen has put the race to bed, which could see him fade from contention.

He’s placed in a Neptune though so getting up the hill over 2m should be no issue and he is not short of pace, at almost double the price of Arctic Fire in some books he is the better value as a sporting bet against the favourite.

Both have very good chances of being second and third and achieving a remarkable 1-2-3 for Mullins. Identity Thief and The New One are the main alternatives but they both look held by the Mullins string on all known form.

Mitigating circumstances there may have been but 12/1 NRNB about the one horse to have beaten the – in places -1/3 favourite seems a very fair bet indeed and given most people will be betting each way against the favourite in the first of the week’s championship races he will likely go off much shorter on the day.

Recommendation:

Nichols Canyon 0.5pt each way @ 12/1 [NRNB] (Sky Bet, Paddy Power)