THE JUKEBOX MAN, 4-TIMER OISIN CLOSES GAP, NOW RATED 108 & AN ANNOUNCEMENT.

Anyone who did not visit this site last year will not be aware that I was all over The Jukebox Man as the coming Gold Cup winner, only failing to name him 'the next big thing' by the narrowest of confidence margins. I loved him from his chasing debut at Newbury all the way to his blow-out in the Cheltenham Gold Cup. Ben Pauling, quite rightly, I believe, came in for criticism for not informing anyone that a week prior to the festival The Jukebox Man had been lame with an undeclared injury. It was also said that the horse had made a 'noise' in the latter stages of the Gold Cup which would requiry surgery. It was all unsatisfactory.

Again without description of the injury, The Jukebox Man will be off-games until the second half of the season, meaning he will be unable to defend his King George crown on Boxing Day. As the horse had his novice season curtailed due to injury, it seems The Jukebox Man is injury-prone and horses with this affliction never get the chance to reach their full potential and he now joins a very long list of potential champions that fate decreed should not go on to Cheltenham championship glory. Remind me to never love a racehorse again.

The injury is described as not being career-ending which to me suggests it is an injury to a tendon and the horse came close to something far more serious, perhaps bruising rather than a strain. It is a pity this has happened as we need in this country exciting young horses of Gold Cup potential, horses capable of putting it up to the magical beasts of Closutton, a horse capable of returning the Gold Cup winning habit back to our shores. Willie Mullins alone has more potential Gold Cup horses under his care than the whole of the British trainers have between them, losing The Jukebox Man from our contingent throws all our hopes on to Nicky Henderson to produce a rival to keep sleep from Willie during the winter months.

My wish for Oisin Murphy to pull his finger out and start to close the gap to Billy Loughnane grew a pace yesterday with a 4-timer at Goodwood to a blank from his rival. I need Billy to be champion jockey this season to bring to fruition my prediction made 3-years ago that he would be champion jockey in 3-years. But I do not want him to run away with the title. I would also like Rossa Ryan to ride more winners than both of them in the run-up to Champions Day, the arbitary date the title is decided. In Ireland, Billy Lee and Colin Keane are locked in battle for the Irish title, with Dylan Browne Mcmonagle close enough to be involved if he should recover quickly from the injuries he incurred at Bellewstown recently. That's how we want the British title to be, a ding-dong battle between two or three-jockeys, with any one of them in with a shot at the title in the final week of the competition. Another 4-timer, please, Oisin.

Constitution Hill has been raised to a rating of 108 by the official handicapper, a little higher than I would have had him and a mark that has not made Nicky Henderson's job any easier. It is Group 3 races or heritage handicaps for him, it seems, none of which particularly easy for him. To my way of thinking, and this goes against his trainer's ambitions for the horse, would be the 2-mile conditions races that are coming up at Ascot on Champions Day and Newmarket, with the November Handicap on the last day of the season as back-up. I am sure all around Europe there are alternatives to be found and in not being able to run the horse through the summer, it can only be a short Autumn campaign for the horse. But that is how the cards have fallen. He will be, no doubt, just another horse that did not fulfil his true potential both over hurdles and on the flat. And yes, I am not in the camp that believes he was the greatest hurdler ever seen. As with so many 'great' flat horses, he was just the best of a quite ordinary cohort of hurdlers. The true 'greatest' of all-time competed in what is commonly referred to as 'the golden era' of hurdling. Night Nurse, Bula, Monksfield, Comedy of Errors and the greatest all-rounder of the lot, Sea Pigeon. Take your pick. Constitution Hill could have been better than them all but one Champion Hurdle crown alone is not enough to earn him the highest honour, and then there is his fall from grace, his falls. He is though still a great horse, as popular a horse as we are privilged to see race since perhaps the days of Desert Orchid.

It is unlikely I will have the time to publish a blog tomorrow as I have an early hospital appointment. It all depends how much time I will have between arriving home and the start of I.T.V.'s coverage of Doncaster. And there will be the news imparted to me at the hospital!