THE Chanelle Pharma Irish Champion Hurdle is rightly billed as the main event on day two of the Dublin Racing Festival tomorrow, but the market suggests there’s every chance it will turn out to be one of the most predictable contests run all weekend.

Upsets can obviously materialise in any horse race, but, in all likelihood, anything other than another win in the €200,000 prize for State Man would surely be deemed a shock.

Joe and Marie Donnelly’s seven-year-old is the ultimate professional and, barring a fall on his stable debut, he has only ever been beaten by one horse since joining Willie Mullins, none other than Constitution Hill, when runner-up at Cheltenham last March.

State Man heads to Leopardstown this weekend on the cusp of what could be an eighth Grade 1 win in the space of nine starts and has been priced up as the 1/4 favourite throughout the week. Put simply, he ought to take the world of the beating again, for all that Bob Olinger is a new and in-form opponent.

If there is a stick with which to beat the reputation of State Man, and indeed Constitution Hill, at this stage of their respective careers, it is the fact there is a glaring lack of depth to the two-mile hurdling divisions that they are dominating on each side of the Irish Sea right now.

Same horses

The entire scene has largely turned into the same two horses beating mostly the same rivals before Cheltenham in March when the leading duo clash. Constitution Hill is already a 1/5 shot for next month’s Unibet Champion Hurdle at the Festival - the shortest-priced favourite of the entire meeting. It looks a done deal.

As has already been flagged in a variety of spaces since the news broke that Nicky Henderson was sending the reigning champion straight to Cheltenham, the standout performer’s absence for so much of the season only weakens the overall picture for two-mile hurdling.

Look no further than the rescheduled Betfair Fighting Fifth Hurdle in December, as an example. Not So Sleepy, beaten 32 lengths as a 150/1 shot on his previous start over obstacles in the Champion Hurdle, struck against only three rivals (currently rated 149, 140 and 147) in the Grade 1 prize.

Speaking of small field sizes, three of State Man’s seven Grade 1 wins have come in four-runner races, another three came in five-runner contests and the other was against just five rivals at Punchestown last spring - all of whom he’d beaten before.

It’s a similar story for Constitution Hill. The combined number of runners he has faced in his life across eight races in Britain is just 44 (an average of 5.5 rivals per run).

That is not the Henderson star’s fault, but at least in Istabraq’s visits to Cheltenham, he ran in fields of 17, 18, 14, 12 and 15 runners.

Field sizes

The division’s demise is further illustrated by the fact the average Champion Hurdle field size has fallen from 15 runners between 1994 and 2009, to 10.5 runners from 2010 to 2023.

There were highs of 23 runners in the 2009 edition, and 18 runners in 1998 and 2006, but a turnout of six rivals to take on Constitution Hill last year represented the smallest Champion Hurdle field in nearly 50 years.

It all begs the question; where have all the top two-mile hurdlers gone?

For this season specifically, Constitution Hill remaining over hurdles will clearly have put many off staying in the division, but the continued growth of Irish point-to-points as a major source for leading National Hunt horses looks a legitimate factor in the overall works.

With more and more graduates from the point-to-point fields excelling on the track, their highly-skilled handlers are investing increasingly heavily in recruiting even better young stock to campaign through this route, and then trade on.

Faugheen memorably became the first Irish point-to-pointer to win the Champion Hurdle in 2015, quickly followed by Honeysuckle and Constitution Hill landing the last three runnings, and that represents significant progress for the sector in this category.

According to the Racing Post database, only one horse who finished in the first three in a Champion Hurdle between 1995 and 2013 began their career in a point-to-point (Peddlers Cross in 2011), and that has jumped up to 17% of all top three finishers in the race over the last decade.

With many of these point-to-pointers having already shown an aptitude for jumping fences in their early training and racing between the flags, connections can then be more inclined to send them chasing as opposed to sticking to hurdles. In general, it feels as though a high proportion of the best of the novice hurdlers are quickly sent novice chasing the following season nowadays, and potentially campaigned over longer trips as their careers develop.

Granted, high-class two-mile hurdlers like Brave Inca, Hardy Eustace, Macs Joy, Jezki and Annie Power started out in bumpers or maiden hurdles in Ireland, but multiple Grade 1-winning rider J.J. Slevin made an astute point in a recent edition of The Big Interview on how point-to-pointing is drawing some quality horses away from bumpers at an early age.

“We see an increase in stores being bought by point-to-point people to produce them for that game, as opposed to being bought by trainers for the track,” he told The Irish Field. “The same horses are no longer reaching the racecourse as their first priority.”

Flat source

It could be argued, though, that the biggest factor in the decline of top-class two-mile hurdlers is the reduction in quality flat performers being sent over hurdles in recent times. Particularly established form horses from the flat trained in Britain or Ireland.

These horses have high trading potential to be sold to continue their careers in Hong Kong, Australia and the Middle East, and the offers made from these jurisdictions can make it hard for some National Hunt buyers to compete.

As IHRB flat handicapper Mark Bird summed it up at last week’s European two-year-old classification launch: “For any maiden winner in Ireland, almost immediately you get a call asking what it’s going to be rated because somebody wants to sell it or buy it.”

When the attractive 10-furlong and upwards flat performers are increasingly being sold abroad, it has knock-on implications for the two-mile hurdling division - something that is evident when looking back at where the top hurdlers from the mid-1990s onwards tended to start their careers.

From 1995 to 2013, 63% of those who finished in the first three in the Champion Hurdle started their careers on the flat. Specifically, horses who debuted in flat races in Britain or Ireland filled 39% of the first three places in Champion Hurdles during this period.

Across the subsequent 10 runnings of the race, just two horses from off the flat in Britain and one from Ireland managed to make the first three in a Champion Hurdle - only a combined 10% of the pool.

In total, when including horses who started on the flat in France, the rate of horses making the frame in the race after beginning life on the flat is down to 33% (from 63%) in the last decade. From 1997 to 2013, 13 of the 18 winners of the Champion Hurdle started off on the flat, but none of the last 10 Champion Hurdle winners followed that path.

When looking back at the profiles of many of the top hurdlers to emerge from the flat, it’s highly likely that if they had emerged on the scene during today’s climate of strong international demand for European flat horses that they might never have seen a hurdle in their lives. The likes of Istabraq, Alderbook, Hurricane Fly, Sublimity, Binocular, Celestial Halo and Theatreworld, to name a few smart hurdlers, could easily have been sold abroad in a different era.

For National Hunt owners, it can be understandably difficult to compete with powerful overseas buyers. That said, when we see figures north of £400,000 paid for point-to-point winners from rural Irish fields - and similar amounts for bumper winners from the French provinces - perhaps it’s slightly surprising that we don’t see more major jumps owners making the push to find their Champion Hurdle horses from off the flat.

History suggests the gamble can often be a worthwhile one.