WHILE all eyes were on Del Mar and the end of the flat season last weekend, Down Royal revealed enough potentially top jumps horses to warm up the enthusiasm for the season ahead.

Gordon Elliott had his string ready for the off, with many of his leading performers from last season up and running. Firefox, Found A Fifty, Romeo Coolio, Kala Conti and Brighterdaysahead all got off to a winning start.

At the beginning of the week, it looked like Elliott had no potential Champion Hurdle contender, but did have a leading Gold Cup challenger again.

However, by the end of the two-day meeting, he had a new name for the Champion Hurdle and perhaps had lesser encouragement that Gold Cup hope Gerri Colombe could pull back the three and a half lengths that he was beaten by Galopin Des Champs in the race last season.

Perhaps there are different plans this season and he was not fully tuned up, but to be beaten over 13 lengths by the 10-year-old Envoi Allen was disappointing, in a race he won last season.

The Real Whacker, who had beaten him as a novice in the Brown Advisory, came back to his best at Wetherby, his good jumping being the match winner. Elliott was on record as saying he could try to get Gerri jumping a bit slicker, but oftentimes this is a natural thing.

One excuse put up by those keeping the faith was that this is Gerri’s second season out of novice company and he could improve. But he coped well in a five-race novice chase campaign and had a good break last year from Christmas to Cheltenham, so he has not been over-raced.

Deteriorate

“He’s only eight” was another plea. But the thing is that Galopin Des Champs is also only eight and there’s no reason to think he should deteriorate this season, even if he has two Gold Cups in his legs. Gerri Colombe is now over double the price he went off at for last year’s Gold Cup, which could be attractive, but I’m not convinced he can step up and last season’s novices looked good.

This time last season the favourites for the five big all-aged races at Cheltenham were Constituton Hill, El Fabiolo, Allaho, Gaelic Warrior and Galopin Des Champs, so a lot changed by March.

The possibility of Brighterdaysahead going for the Champion Hurdle raises an interesting prospect. We still have to see the return of Constitution Hill and hope he gets to the Festival in good shape again. But State Man will not scare off any rivals and most of the top novices from last year seem to be going chasing. That could leave Lossiemouth and Brighterdaysahead well to the fore for the hurdling championship.

We could see a scenario where it’s two mares fighting it out. That might be another plus in the defence of the Mares’ Hurdle since, without it, these mares may never have become such hot property.

AMERICA was the focus of worldwide attention for most of last week, both in racing and politics.

Donald Trump’s election victory seemed to reinforce the old repost – “It’s the economy, stupid”, since his behaviour can surely never be endearing to a majority of people.

And while City Of Troy’s demise in the Breeders’ Cup on the back of all the ‘best ever’ plaudits, might seem a tame end, it’s the next career that makes the difference. It’s now the racing economy.

He had the Derby win and one ‘wow’ moment at York to boast about, but he lacked the consistent ‘wow’ performances of Sea The Stars and Frankel among the recent champions.

Tom Segal’s Weekender assessment that, “he could have put up a performance from the ages if all the stars had aligned” is a bit of a cop-out, we don’t judge greatness on the ‘could haves’.

But in the wider picture, the ‘race’ is only beginning, the next chapter counts for more than the racecourse to those in the business of arranging stallion matings to create that next headline-grabbing star.

Looking through the stallion fee announcements and comparisons to 2023, the top miler of 2022 Paddington is one to receive a €20,000 reduction in his fee.

Perhaps more interesting is a look at the two colts who did have performances from the ages – the only two US Triple Crown winners in 45 years. American Pharoah dominated his season, Justify got the Triple Crown and was gone by early June. But the 2018 Triple Crown winner has had a great few seasons at stud. With the wins and the looks, American Pharoah began at $200,000 but now stands for $45,000, a long way off Justify’s $250,000

City Of Troy may have created plenty of debate on track and he goes to stud at €75,000. The crunch comes now.

FASTORSLOW’S omission from the King George entries, a race that had been mentioned as his early target and for which he had been well-backed, caused a bit of consternation this week. It highlighted the risks of ante-post betting.

Despite trainer reassurances, it would seem the King George might not be his top of the targets that many had expected.

AK BETS@AKBets

Lot of money for this horse over numerous weeks for the King George. Undoubtedly the best backed horse Antepost for the forthcoming National Hunt season. Tame lions this sport.

And if ante-post punters are already in danger of losing out on a race only six weeks away, the Cheltenham novice hurdle betting in November is a maze that punters might be well to tread warily ountil horses have at least made their seasonal debuts. For the one that goes on to be value on the day, there are surely 10 times that number of ‘potential’ horses, who disappoint or go to a different race.

To highlight the precarious nature, one respected pundit, in his October 2023 jumps preview, put up a horse that “has Albert Bartlett written all over him”. Now, that surely must be the worst race to be recommending anything, four months away. It turned out the horse did not have Albert Barlett stamped over him, as it was the classy Firefox, while the eventual 33/1 winner on the day was Stellar Story, his stablemate.

The last four Bartlett winners have returned at 33, 18s, 18s and 14/1, so there is likely to be plenty of value available on the day.

This year, there is another selection, again with “Albert Barlett written all over him”, it is the Cheltenham and Punchestown fourth Sounds Victorious, who heads the markets at around 16/1.

You would imagine most trainers would not want to be looking at their novice hurdler and being told ‘he has Albert Barlett written all over him’ in November, because it’s just long-hand for saying he’s a slow horse.

We’ll see how this lad progresses, but we might see a lot more of those to get stuck into before March, not to get too involved with looking for the winner in November.