the day before constitution hill saunters away with the 2023 champion hurdle.

​I expect, as, I dare say, the majority expect, that Constitution Hill will win the 2023 Champion Hurdle with his head in his chest. Can’t see any other outcome, can you? Yet even if he wins by 20-lengths, which is entirely possible, I will not be joining the chorus of ‘could he be the best we have ever seen’. Or whatever hyperbole spews from Ed Chamberlain’s mouth after the race. Oh, I have deliberately missed out the ? as Ed will not be posing a question but delivering his firm belief.
At this moment, Constitution Hill has run 5-times in his life and though in time he will perhaps run-up a sequence of victories to equal Istabraq, or be considered his superior, Constitution Hill has a lot of running to do. One swallow doth not make a summer and 5 or 6 strolls in the park against the quality of opposition he has thus far raced against doth not make a legendary superstar.
Younger people must be educated on the golden years of Champion Hurdlers, back when multiple champions met in race after race leading up to the Festival. For example, let’s dwell for a moment on Monksfield. He was not a shooting star. He had to work for his corn, his legendary status. He had run in 4 handicap hurdles before he went to Cheltenham for the first time, finishing second in the Triumph Hurdle behind Peterhof. He then returned to handicaps and was regularly beaten before he won the Irish Benson & Hedges Handicap at Fairyhouse, from where he finished fourth in the Sweeps Hurdle, also a handicap. In fact, handicaps were his staple running up to his 1977 clash with Night Nurse, the reigning Champion Hurdler, finishing second to the horse John Randall considers the greatest hurdler of all-time.
In fact, Monksfield continued to get beaten in handicaps and didn’t win a race the following year until getting his revenge on Night Nurse in the 1978 Champion Hurdle and again at Liverpool, before failing to give 2-stone to Royal Gaye in the Royal Doulton on firm ground in May of that year.
Of course, the great horse won a second Champion Hurdle the following season beating the legendary Sea Pigeon in a pulsating finish. Monksfield was a scrapper, never having an easy race.
I am making two points here. One, Monksfield ran a lot. Yes, it was a different time, when trainers did not have access to all-weather gallops, when the majority of the top hurdle races were handicaps and if Nicky Henderson had to prepare a horse for Cheltenham in a similar manner he would be a hell of a lot slimmer. And two, in the ‘golden era’ there were so many great hurdlers it is not an easy task to remember all their names. Here goes: Monksfield, Night Nurse, Comedy of Errors, Lanzarote, Bula, Beacon Light, Birds Nest and the horse John Francome described as ‘undoubtedly the best horse he ever rode, Sea Pigeon.
Even in, perhaps, the weakest Champion Hurdle Sea Pigeon ever ran in – a masterclass of a ride, by the way, from Francome – he beat the likes of Pollardstown, Daring Run, Celtic Ryde, Birds Nest, Badsworth Boy and Heighlin, multiple winners of multiple big races.
Istabraq, to set the record straight, won 25-races, 14 Grade 1’s, plus 3 Champion Hurdles and would have won 4 if not for the Foot and Mouth outbreak.
This is why it is sheer folly to anoint the head of Constitution Hill with greatness after only 5 starts, 6 come this time tomorrow. His potential is boundless. He could be anything from better than Istabraq to another Bob Olinger. Remember Bob Olinger and all that was said of him by the same people who are now bestowing similar sentiments on Constitutional Hill? Tomorrow his task is to beat State Man, the other 5 hardly count as serious rivals. Get my drift?