It says much for the extent to which Cheltenham dominates the National Hunt landscape that the most talked about performance prior to this year’s Festival did not come in a race at all.
It is the morning of February 27, a fortnight out exactly from the start of the sport’s biggest Jumps meeting, and leading trainer Nicky Henderson is putting a number of his Festival hopefuls through their final paces in a gallop open to the media at Kempton Park. As two of his horses stride clear up the run-in, worried eyes are trained back up the straight towards a labouring third.
Constitution Hill is not used to trailing. In eight starts under rules he has never been beaten, and only once has a rival even got within nine lengths. Something, clearly, is up.
Almost immediately, bookmakers suspend their antepost markets, while both social media and the betting exchanges are sent into frenzy. The horse is swiftly scoped and “evidence of mucus” found in his lungs, with the ominous warning that further assessment will be needed to get to the root of the cause, the starting gun fired on a race against time to get him fit.
For the best part of a week, punters and pundits become amateur veterinarians, speculating on timeframes, interpreting blood test results and waiting on tenterhooks for further updates.
Henderson provides them with laudable diligence, each one typed up on Microsoft Word, printed out on paper, photographed and then posted on X. At some stage, someone points out that at least two of these steps are unnecessary and the process is streamlined.
Finally, six days on, the inevitable is confirmed: the Champion Hurdler is out of his title defence. The Festival has lost its best horse and its most transcendent star.
Brilliant horses have missed major meetings before and will again, but for many the Constitution Hill saga epitomised so many of the growing problems that plague the sport, in particular the over-prioritisation of one week in March above all else.
The seven-year-old had been campaigned cautiously all season, skipping other races prestigious in their own right, and running just once in the build-up to what would have been his biggest day. His absence now leaves a hole not only in the Champion Hurdle, tomorrow’s feature, but in the entire meeting.
Ideally, the removal of an unbeaten champion would at least come with the consolation of making an open renewal of the race. Instead, one long odds-on favourite has been replaced by another in Ireland’s best, State Man, showcasing a lack of depth at the pinnacle of the sport that is by no means limited to this division alone.
That he is trained by Willie Mullins turns focus to another troubling fact. Mullins is a genius, the leading trainer at this meeting for five straight years, but the gap to his rivals appears to be growing and the extent of his week-to-week dominance is becoming a turn-off for some. At time of writing, there is not a Grade One race across the first two days for which he does not have the favourite.
In isolation, none of these concerns are particularly new, but this season they have snowballed. Throw in widening dissent at the spiralling cost of attending the Festival itself — across entry, food, drink, travel and accommodation — and it is not difficult to spot a perfect storm brewing. Paradoxically, with ticket sales reportedly down on recent years, racegoers may at least find the issue of overcrowding resolved.
The Festival has begun under darker clouds before and shone through by the opening day’s end, but seldom can so many of the sport’s problems been at least partially self-inflicted.
And so, the onus, as ever, is on the racing to rise above, to sate all and justify the hype. New stars are needed, with not just Constitution Hill missing to injury, but dual Champion Chaser Energumene and dual Ryanair winner Allaho as well, while Honeysuckle, second only to Tiger Roll in terms of recent public cut-through, was retired last year.
Galopin Des Champs, though, is back to defend the Gold Cup in what is not only the week’s Blue Riband event but also, on paper, its best, while Ballyburn, Sir Gino and Fact To File are among a fresh, coming crop of Festival maidens with the potential to set the place alight.
Others, too, may yet emerge. For all sorts of reasons it has felt a muddling campaign so far, one of narratives undercooked and reputations blown up and burst just as quickly.
It is at the spring festivals, though, where most equine legends are made — and nowhere more than at Cheltenham.
