Festival Focus - Neptune Novices' Hurdle 2015

Grand Cranyon - Nichols Canyon looks a worthy favourite in the Neptune.

With NRNB now available with a couple of bookies on either all or most of the races at the Cheltenham festival the Neptune can now be looked at with a bit more confidence having been a race that had, and still has for that matter, several question marks over it.

As the middle distance hurdles race for novices the Neptune is often the most difficult race to assess from a long range perspective given its interim distance.

You’re highly unlikely to see a horse tried over 2m or 3m drop back or step up to one or the other, however it is much the norm to see horses campaigned over two and a half miles to do either.

That makes the Neptune a tough race to call because there is a very good chance the race will cut up and there a number of horses prominent in the betting that look nailed on to run in one of the other two novice hurdle events.

The recent vibes though seem to suggest that classy flat recruit Nichols Canyon – currently heading the betting for the race – will indeed run here and with the NRNB concession now in effect you can back him safe in the knowledge that should there be a late twist in the tail before the start of the festival and the Mullins pack is reshuffled your bet will simply be voided.

Festival Focus - The Neptune

Part Puffin, Part Machine - Puffin Billy can win the Neptune on the way to superstardom

This years’ renewal of the Neptune Investment Management Novices’ Hurdle (henceforth for the purposes of this piece ‘The Neptune’) has the potential to arguably be the race of the festival given some of the likely combatants.

Of course, as is the case with most of the novice hurdles at the festival some horses at the head of the betting may end up tackling further in the Albert Bartlett or shorter in the Supreme.

One thing is for certain though, even if we do lose one or two of the potential runners in this year’s Neptune we still look set for a truly vintage renewal of the race won so impressively last year by arguably the next big thing in chasing Simonsig.

The best place to start is probably with the most aptly named horse in a novice race – The New One. The Nigel Twiston-Davies inmate’s price has collapsed since his Warwick stroll the weekend before last and although he was undoubtedly impressive that day I’m not quite convinced that in a race with as much strength in depth as this year’s Neptune has that his current price quite reflects his chance.