Cheltenham anoints new greats but thin crowds hint at need for shake-up

T wo brilliant performances by new champions of jump racing bookended this year’s Cheltenham Festival, and both Constitution Hill, the Champion Hurdle winner, and Galopin Des Champs, who survived all manner of problems to run out an easy winner of the Gold Cup, promise to be fixtures at the meeting for several years to come.

The precise days on which they should be pulling in the crowds – and there’s more on that to come – remain to be seen. Galopin Des Champs, clearly, is a huge new talent among staying chasers and, all being well, will line up for two more Gold Cups at least. Constitution Hill, though, is the potential wild card. He is already established as a generational talent over hurdles but could yet rise even further among the all-time greats if his immense talent can stretch to a switch to chasing.

The Arkle? The Champion Chase? Perhaps even the Gold Cup, and an attempt to emulate Dawn Run in a head-to-head with Galopin Des Champs? Anything is possible for Constitution Hill in theory, and his sporting owner, Michael Buckley, may yet roll the dice. If he sticks to two-mile hurdles, the limited Grade One programme could mean that he sees his horse race just three times a year: at Newcastle in November, at Kempton at Christmas and at Cheltenham in March.

Constitution Hill remains a possible runner in next month’s Aintree Hurdle, over two and a half miles, which suggests that his connections are already toying with the idea of testing his boundaries sooner rather than later. And both Buckley and Nicky Henderson, Constitution Hill’s trainer, are old enough to remember the famous meeting of Arkle and Mill House in the 1964 Gold Cup. A meeting between the two horses remains a remote possibility, but we can always