Nicky Henderson confirms Constitution Hill will remain over hurdles this season

Constitution Hill, the best hurdler of recent decades, will stick to the smaller obstacles “for the foreseeable future” and swerve an ambitious attempt to become only the second horse to win both the Champion Hurdle and Cheltenham Gold Cup, Nicky Henderson, the gelding’s trainer, said on Tuesday.

The news ends many months of speculation that Constitution Hill might be sent over fences this autumn with the ultimate aim of emulating Dawn Run, whose Gold Cup success in 1986, two years after her win in the Champion Hurdle, remains one of the defining moments and images of the last half-century over jumps.

Henderson told the Nick Luck Daily Podcast on Tuesday morning that the decision to stick to hurdles had been taken as a result of concerns about Constitution Hill’s stamina for the Gold Cup trip, and following discussions with Nico de Boinville, the six-year-old’s regular jockey.

“Possibly his [de Boinville’s] input was as important as any,” Henderson said, “because the main reason for it is nothing to do with jumping fences, it’s purely in our opinion, stamina is not guaranteed.

“A horse that can break track records over two miles is, you have to be fair in thinking, he’s unlikely to stay three-and-a-quarter in something like the Gold Cup, and really there is nothing to be gained in going chasing for the Arkle [Trophy, for novices] and the Champion Chase [over two miles], the Champion Hurdle is just as prestigious as either of them. So it seemed logical to stay where we are.”

The decision by Henderson and Michael Buckley, the reigning champion hurdler’s owner, all but guarantees that the two-mile hurdle division in Britain this winter will involve Constitution Hill beating the same, small handful of opponents three times – at Newcastle in November, Kempton Park a month later and then Cheltenham’s Trials meeting in January – at odds of around 1-10, before doing the same to the Irish Champion Hurdle winner, again at long odds-on, in the Champion Hurdle at the Festival in March.

This will add four more “1s″ to the seven that Constitution Hill already has to his name, and a little over £500,000 (€580,000) to the six-year-old’s haul of prize money.

For some racing fans, this will be more than enough. The purity of Constitution Hill’s unbeaten record under Rules – he was a close second in his only point-to-point race – will remain unsullied, and he might, depending on the strength of his opposition, boost his Timeform rating by the 6lb necessary to overhaul Night Nurse as the highest-rated hurdler in the operation’s history. And while he has been known to take a chance or two with the hurdles, the likelihood of the sport’s best horse suffering a fall, or being brought down, will be much reduced.

Others, though, will feel a sense of deflation, not least after many teasing suggestions over the summer that a tilt at a Gold Cup was a serious possibility. There may be a feeling too that National Hunt racing is edging ever closer to the risk-averse nature of the Flat, where a lack of ambition or determination to protect a winning streak is at least partly explained by the fact that the best horses can earn far more as stallions than they ever will on the track.

But Constitution Hill, like 99.9 per cent of the male horses competing over jumps, is a gelding, and uncertainty is the essence of the game. It is why the crowds all head to Cheltenham every March, and keeps betting turnover rolling from one week, and season, to the next. If you know what is going to happen before you turn up, there may come a point when you decide that it is not worth the effort and expense.

As Henderson made clear, the decision to stick to hurdling is nothing to do with concerns about Constitution Hill’s jumping. It is down to stamina concerns, which is another way of saying that, above all, his winning record matters most and they do not want to see him beaten.

Well, who does? But you will never find out if a horse stays the Gold Cup trip unless you try, and Henderson and Buckley are both old enough to remember the days when no one thought any less of a top jumping horse if it was beaten. It happened to greats like Arkle, Desert Orchid and Night Nurse, and a courageous defeat was often far more exciting and memorable – and thus better for the game as a whole – than another routine success.

Another season, and perhaps an entire career, over hurdles will be good news for his connections’ bank accounts and, perhaps, for Henderson’s blood pressure too, given his famously jittery nature when his stable stars put unbeaten records on the line. Whether it is the best news for the sport of jump racing, however, is more open to question. – Guardian