IT had all been going so well. The 2025 Dublin Racing Festival was delivering on so many levels leading up to one of the clashes of the season in Sunday’s Irish Champion Hurdle.

Galopin Des Champs put on a show for his legion of fans, Majborough, Ballyburn, Final Demand and Kopek Des Bordes proved that the future is bright for Willie Mullins’ team of novices, while Danny Mullins popped up with his usual DRF cameo thanks to Vischio and Solness. Even Gavin Cromwell did his part to break the Closutton stranglehold across the weekend too, recording a memorable treble.

But the clash we all were so keenly looking forward to failed to reach the boiling point. Round one of State Man vs Lossiemouth promised so much yet left us with more questions than answers when the younger rival took a crashing fall four flights from home.

You can only imagine how the champion trainer’s heart must have skipped a beat when one of his primary Champion Hurdle hopes fell and nearly brought down the other. In an instant, it so easily could have been curtains for both.

State Man was left to canter home in his own time, meaning we didn’t learn anything new about him, while Lossiemouth has now suffered back-to-back losses for the first time in her career. It was also the first time she ever finished out of the first two.

Who knows how Susannah Ricci’s six-year-old would have fared in the final reckoning, but an obvious question that is bound to be asked plenty in the lead-up to this year’s Cheltenham Festival is how she will fare heading into the Champion Hurdle on the back of a nasty fall. Nobody could consider it an ideal preparation.

Holding firm

Despite the tumble, Lossiemouth remains a general 4/1 shot to beat Constitution Hill (and Brighterdayshead, if she runs here) in the two-mile feature on day one of the Festival. As well as State Man, those will be the best rivals she has ever faced in her career.

At those relatively short odds in the ultimate test for two-mile hurdlers, should her supporters be concerned by needing to bounce back immediately from a fall?

According to Proform, a total of 160 horses since 2009 have run at the Cheltenham Festival after falling on their final start before the meeting. Just seven managed to win (4.4% strike rate).

Those seven winners arrived with mostly different circumstances to what Lossiemouth is trying to leave behind too. For starters, five were chasers - novice chasers - who came to grief in their pre-Cheltenham appearance. One was even unlucky to be in that category, last season’s National Hunt Chase winner Corbetts Cross, who shipped a bump in mid-air during his prep run at Fairyhouse and had little chance to stand up.

Of the two hurdlers to pull off the feat, like Lossiemouth, they both fell at what is now the Dublin Racing Festival. Nichols Canyon fell at the last in the 2017 Irish Champion Hurdle on route to winning that year’s Stayers’ Hurdle and Mrs Milner departed at the fifth in the 2021 Paddy Mullins Mares Handicap Hurdle prior to capturing the Pertemps Final.

However, it must be said that the pair were stepping up to three miles (from two miles/two miles and two furlongs) and raced next time on the new course at Cheltenham, where there are only two hurdles in the last seven furlongs. That is a wildly different challenge to taking on tip-top two-mile hurdlers at what could be a ferocious pace on the old course, if King Of Kingsfield ensures a similar gallop to what brought the best out of Brighterdaysahead at Christmas.

Shorter distances

In fact, Proform’s figures since 2009 indicate that last-time-out fallers in hurdles over two miles and five furlongs or shorter at the Cheltenham Festival are 0-50. Those to go closest to doing so are Darlan, who finished second to Cinders And Ashes in the 2010 Supreme after falling two out in the Betfair Hurdle, 2020 Triumph Hurdle runner-up Aspire Tower (fell as 1/3 favourite at the Dublin Racing Festival) and Polly Peachum, who tried to capitalise on Annie Power’s infamous fall in the 2015 Mares’ Hurdle in second. That was her first start since November, when having virtually fallen at the last at Kempton over three miles.

When stretching it out to all Grade 1 hurdles over two miles since 2009, the record of last-time-out fallers is 4-49 (8% strike rate), as per Proform. Willie Mullins was responsible for 17 of those runners and two of those winners. Again, the two winners weren’t exactly comparable to the situation Lossiemouth is emerging from; Saldier was returning from a year off when winning the 2019 Morgiana Hurdle on the back of a fall when previously seen, while 2014 Punchestown Champion Four-Year-Old Hurdle scorer Abbyssial had exited at the second in the Triumph Hurdle.

In the same Ricci silks as Lossiemouth, Benie Des Dieux and Annie Power won next time out after their final-flight exits in the Mares’ Hurdle at Cheltenham, though they did collect at 2/5 and 2/9 respectively in the Punchestown Mares Champion Hurdle when fully entitled to do so. Those were considerably less intense tests than the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham will present, and they came over two miles and two furlongs/two and a half miles.

It’s certainly not impossible for a mare of Lossiemouth’s calibre to bounce back on the big stage. If there is anyone you want on your side when preparing a horse to deliver a peak performance at the Cheltenham Festival, it’s Willie Mullins - the most successful trainer in the meeting’s history.

On the jumping front, as highlighted in this column a year ago, the 2024 Cheltenham Festival was reportedly the first time Mullins saddled at least one runner in each race at the meeting, and he had just one faller from 75 runners, though El Fabiolo technically came unstuck due to jumping.

Additionally, from the period of January 2022 to April 2024, he had just a 2.7% rate of horses from Closutton falling or unseating from over 1,000 runners in that window.

The question is not simply whether Lossiemouth puts in a clear round next time, however. She has never fallen before this. It is more a concern as to whether her confidence might have taken a knock ahead of the biggest test of her career, and whether this really sets her up well to take some truly elite two-mile hurdlers

Those rowing in behind her at 4/1 will likely be showing some bravery.