WE saw it coming, or did we? The “I’d like to run him but…” from Nicky Henderson on his champion hurdler Constitution Hill.

“He’s gone from the Christmas Hurdle to the Champion Hurdle without a race, and he did the same the year before with the Supreme.” It’s looking like he has found the slimmest of reasons for not running the horse, who is so far ahead of his likely opponents that he should win any hurdle race in Britain in second gear.

Of course, we can point out a few other sparingly campaigned horses heading to Cheltenham in a trend set by Best Mate back in the day but they were not head and shoulders above their opposition.

L’Homme Presse is likely to have only one run, Gentlemansgame plans are not yet set. And, yes, Willie Mullins used one lesser race for Al Boum Photo’s prep for a second shot at the Gold Cup.

State Man is the superior hurdler in Ireland. While not as obviously dominant as Constitution Hill the comparison is valid, He ran five times last season, all in Grade 1s, winning four. His runs were well enough spaced from the end of November to Christmas, the Dublin Racing Festival in February, Cheltenham in March and Punchestown in April. He won his four Grade 1s by three lengths or more.

It was a proper campaign for a top horse. Five runs did him no harm as he appears better than ever this season.

If any horse deserved the “this will not be beaten” chant it’s surely Constitution Hill.

Good headlines

Racing rarely gets good headlines these days. Horses of Constitution Hill’s talent are rare and should be making headlines.

There is no logical reason why he should come to any harm or lessen his Champion Hurdle prospects by running in two weeks’ time. And no logical reason why he should even be beaten.

Imagine what a state racing would be if everyone tried to protect their best horse by running him twice a year?

WITH ante-post bets for Cheltenham becoming more than a shade boring by this stage (there are so few options and too many pundits stating the obvious) there are a few “let’s fiddle with the Festival” suggestions seeing the light again.

While not disputing that some of the recent Festival races have left a lot to be desired the dumping of any Grade 1s is highly unlikely. And the usual suspect, the Mares’ Hurdle - when used the Annie Power/Honeysuckle way as a step up to the Champion - deserves to have a place on the Festival card.

The Bumper also gets a bit of stick but it has been there since 1992 and quality winners include Montelado, Dato Star, Florida Pearl, Alexander Banquet, Monsignor, Cue Card, Champagne Fever, Envoi Allen, Ferny Hollow, Sir Gerhard and Facile Vega. A few other winners have been unlucky never to have made it to the top over obstacles by misfortune - Total Enjoyment, Missed That and Fayonagh.

A total of 21 horses ran in last year’s Bumper. Of those, 19 have run since and 17 have won. Only three of last year’s field were six-year-olds, the rest four and five year-olds – where’s the harm having a race for those young horses at the Festival? It has justified itself many times.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are some calls for a veterans’ chase, presumably over three miles, to be added.

The first problem is it could pull runners from the other staying chases and the Cross Country. Nine runners in that race were 10 and older last season. If the age limit began at 10, would it attract true veterans or the likes of Monkfish, even if a handicap?

And a fast-run three miles on decent ground over a stiff test of a jumper could be asking for trouble, especially if it came up testing ground.

And sights this week of what looked like Gordon Elliott’s Cross Country team of six schooling should emphasise that this race really needs to penalise the Grade 1 runners like Conflated, Delta Work, Galvin and Minella Indo.

Now the other race that I think needs a revamp is the National Hunt Chase. Is there need for this to be a Grade 2? It used to be a really decent betting race for the ‘slower’ novices.

Recent winners Galvin, Stattler and Gaillard Du Mesnil competed at Grade 1 level. Last year’s winner was third in the Grade 1 Brown Advisory the previous season and the last two winners went off favourite at 2/1 and a shade odds-on. Minella Rocco also beat subsequent Gold Cup winner Native River in 2016.

But the best stories were from the lower quality stayers like Tiger Roll and it saw some mighty gambles back in the day. This is the race to make into a handicap, and still leave it for amateur riders.

Paul Fitzgerald@Cav_TRF

Wolves first Sunday evening meeting yesterday did about 86% of the business on the BF win markets that their evening meeting on Friday achieved.

Stephen Harvey@teetonmill

If off course Bookmakers tell the BHA Sunday night racing is a success, then Sunday night racing is here to stay. The BHA have no option but to keep it. They have relinquished their power to form their own fixture list. Online Bookmakers are simply too powerful to oppose.

Kelvin Ozzy@KelvSTO

The BHA won’t be laughing when there’s no staff left to take them to the races because I certainly won’t be staying in the industry the way its going.....

Adam@GeeGeeBanker

Racing is the oldest form of sports betting. “My horse is faster than your horse and here’s my money to back my opinion” Maybe one day we can lose all the politics and get back to that.

Richard Jones@Jonahboy121