The ‘will he, won’t he?’ quandary surrounding Constitution Hill lining up in the Unibet Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham in just over a fortnight now even has a global perspective.
On Sunday, Michael Buckley, owner of British racing’s headline act, nominated the Melbourne Cup in November as a long-term ambition for the horse that delivered a sparkling debut performance on the flat at Southwell on Friday night.
Such was the impression made by Constitution Hill in the new discipline – he earned a 106p rating from the respected Timeform organisation – that it has opened a potential flat career at the age of nine.
Buckley nominated September’s Irish St Leger at the Irish Champions Festival as one potential route to Flemington for the race that famously stops a nation.
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National Hunt racing’s more immediate priority is whether the 2023 Champion Hurdle winner will be allowed try to regain the crown at the biggest meeting of the jumps year.
Interpreting Buckley’s latest remarks, along with those from trainer Nicky Henderson over the weekend, is coming close to a sectoral preoccupation ahead of a planned crucial schooling session for the horse this week.
The superstar that’s fallen in three of his last four starts over flights was cut to as low as 7-4 favourite for Cheltenham with some firms after his Southwell romp under Oisín Murphy. But whether he lines up has become something of an ethical dilemma that’s consuming the sport.
The risk of sending Constitution Hill back over jumps, with the attendant focus should he endure another spill with perhaps catastrophic results, is balanced by conclusions likely to be drawn by anti-racing elements about the sport’s hazards if the challenge is ducked.
“The plan is to school him again this week with Yogi Breisner. We’ve been doing loads of that, and it’s been going fantastically well – Nico [de Boinville] is thrilled with him. It’s keeping an option open, but there is a lot of responsibility behind what we decide to do. We’ve got to bear that in mind,” Henderson commented.
Breisner is a Swedish-born eventing coach who has carved out a reputation in Britain as a jumping ‘guru’ for racehorses.
“We have got to bear this cross of responsibility and we owe that to racing, and everybody,” added Henderson. “A lot of the people would love to see him there [Cheltenham] and do it, but there is also the faction that says no you shouldn’t. We have now got to really think it out.
“The schooling session will tell us a lot. He has definitely changed in his technique. He [Breisner] has got him putting a stride in. We are putting them in the whole time and he has been really good. I’m there to advise, but Yogi knows all about these things as he is the expert at it.
“He has said to me the great thing he has is Nico, as he is one of the best horsemen he has ever worked with. He loves doing it with him as he is so good, and so is the horse. We would like to do that again and that will be in the later part of the week.”
Buckley at least clarified that if his pride and joy lines up at Cheltenham it will be his only start over jumps this year. But the veteran owner is clearly enthused at the idea of a new flat career for Constitution Hill.
“The horse should be running around about the end of August, the beginning of September, in either the Ebor, or there’s a race at Goodwood, or in the Irish St Leger, with a view to going to Melbourne,” he told Racing TV.
“I did say to Nicky yesterday, can we just agree on one thing then – whatever we decide about Cheltenham, let’s for the rest of this year concentrate on a flat campaign. And if it doesn’t go well – either you’ll have run on the Tuesday [in the Champion Hurdle] or you won’t – but you can always come back and try it [hurdling] again the following year.
“Let’s this year concentrate on the flat after a fortnight’s time. In a sense it [winning so impressively at Southwell] made it more confusing, but for me anyway – putting Tuesday aside – if he doesn’t run [in the Champion Hurdle] I don’t see him running over hurdles again this year, in 2026. But if he ran and let’s say he fell, obviously he would never run over hurdles again ever.
“If he ran and won, it would be one hell of a swansong and it would kind of put a few demons to bed for me, I must say. But I’m not saying if things didn’t go well on the flat that we mightn’t come back in a year and say let’s try and defend it.”
