Coral Challow Novices’ Hurdle

HERMES Allen (Paul Nicholls/Harry Cobden) will head straight to Cheltenham where he’s likely to be a warm order for the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle on the Wednesday after producing a sparkling display to take Grade 1 honours in the Challow Hurdle at Newbury on Saturday.

Harry Skelton on Vicki Vale was keen to ensure the 11/10 favourite did not have things his own way, and she briefly looked to have her field in trouble after slipping clear in the back straight.

But her early efforts proved too much for her, and she faded in the straight, leaving the favourite – on whom Cobden had not moved a muscle – to cruise home having jumped with great assurance on the rain-softened turf.

You Wear It Well (Jamie Snowden/Gavin Sheehan) fared best of the rest in second, but she was flattered by her near five-length proximity to the heavily eased winner. Idalko Bihoue (Nigel/Sam Twiston-Davies) was beaten by a little over 16 lengths in third having raced prominently.

Nicholls has previously won this race with high-class sorts Cornish Rebel (2003) Denman (2006), Bravemansgame (2020) and Stage Star (2021) but wasn’t at Newbury on Saturday as it was his landlord Paul Barber’s 80th birthday.

Speaking from Ditcheat he said: “He had been slow at home, but he’s waking up mentally and physically. I promise you, the reason we went to Stratford first time out is because he’d shown us absolutely nothing at home.

“I thought it could have been embarrassing, but then he went and bolted in. That’s often the way with backward horses.

“We wanted to run him in the spring after we bought him (for £350,000 after winning a point in November 2021), but he was so backward I didn’t want to embarrass anyone. Time never does these good horses any harm.

“I suspect we’ll go straight to Cheltenham now. There’s no real need to run him again [and] I don’t want to go to the well too often as he’ll have had a hard race on that ground today.”

Horror

Hermes Allen is owned in partnership by several long-term patrons of Manor Farm Stables, including Sir Alex Ferguson and John Hales; the latter was at Newbury, and recalled his horror when the trainer told him his expensive purchase was showing nothing at home, but that turned to relief when he won at Stratford, and pure joy with this top-notch performance on contrasting ground.

The Challow Hurdle is Britain’s only Grade 1 hurdle for novices at around two and a half miles prior to the spring festivals and, as such, ought to be a prime source of winners of the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham.

In reality, it has gained a reputation as a graveyard for Festival hopes, with no Challow winner has gone on to score in the Ballymore in the former’s history.

This is something the winning trainer is well aware of, with even the mighty Denman toppled at Cheltenham in March, while Bravemansgame also came up short at skinny odds.

There is no obvious reason Challow winners – many who have gone on to be top-class later in their careers – should fail in the Ballymore, and there is certainly something of a statistical anomaly about that supposed hoodoo. Maybe this is the year to put the myth to bed?