Only Nicky Henderson could defy the odds with a Christmas Hurdle win with Constitution Hill (Nico de Boinville), after the horse’s year-long break, says Davy Russell.
Former Irish champion jockey Davy Russell salutes top National Hunt trainer Nicky Henderson for letting his horses do the talking in a sport where patience is key
This year’s Christmas racing was unreal. Whether you’re a diehard fan or someone new to the game, what we all witnessed was very special.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that Nicky Henderson pulled off such a remarkable training performance. He’s done it so many times in the past with the likes of his three-time Champion Hurdle winner See You Then, who raced sparingly owing to tendon problems and won the Champion Hurdle off one run.
Then more recently, there was Sprinter Sacre, who won the Champion Chase after an absence of nearly three months.
Nicky has received so much stick in the press and on social media about not running his horses. You’ll remember Henrietta Knight faced a similar barrage with her triple Gold Cup-winner Best Mate, with people complaining she didn’t run him enough.
But why would Nicky run Constitution Hill if he wasn’t right? Once again, Nicky let his horses do the talking and he was proved right in his decision not to run until Kempton. The result underlined why patience is so important in our sport.
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Irish excitement
There was a real buzz at Kempton that day and it was the same at Leopardstown, when dual Gold Cup-winner Galopin Des Champs cast aside the superstar young pretender Fact To File to win his 10th Grade One. The champion once again proved he’s no fluke.
Brighterdaysahead is another for the Irish to get excited about and her 30-length victory in the Grade One Neville Hotels Hurdle was sensational. You’d have a soft spot for the mare because she’s so mannered and she’s actually very unassuming at home. But when you realise what’s under the hood, she’s something different.
She’s been looked after by the same people from the start, Sinead O’Brien and Shane McCann. I rode her as a young horse and I loved her. She was special, but she was so green and you wouldn’t realise how fast she is until you had another horse to take her a good gallop. I’ve never known a horse who can go so fast for such a long time.
Another Nicky Henderson runner, Sir Gino, put up a performance the likes of which I don’t think we’ve seen in my generation at least. He was a super sub in the Fighting Fifth at Newcastle and to win an unplanned Grade One over hurdles meant he had to be a special horse, but the way he took on his fences at Kempton was a real sight.
All in all, there’s plenty of strength and depth on both sides of the Irish Sea, more than we’ve seen for a long time, and the scales seem to be balancing themselves out. There will be a lot of fellas with their chests out heading to the Cheltenham Festival and it’s very exciting for the sport.
It’s time to take a chance
This year’s sales were pretty healthy and anything fancy is making a bit of money. But what I’ve noticed is that people aren’t willing to take a chance on anything slightly out of the norm. Unless it’s down on paper for all to see – either by a horse doing something extraordinary on the track or having a standout pedigree that suggests they could be a bit special – buyers don’t want to know. Even the syndicates have got fussier.
But this sport is not an exact science and I’m sure that in a couple of years, there will be stories from buyers about how much value they got. Just look at the 18hh Jeannot Lapin, who won at Leopardstown at odds of 150/1, having been bought for £3,000 as a hunter chaser. Although the horse was well bred and had reasonable form, there you have someone going against the grain and Dominic Jones, who took a chance buying him, is reaping the rewards.
Those horses are there if you’re lucky enough and willing to have a go.
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Jockey Davy Russell is a dual Grand National winner and he returned to the 2022 Cheltenham Festival for the first time since breaking his neck in 2020. He is three-time champion jockey in his native Ireland and was leading jockey at Cheltenham in 2018.
