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Leading Mullins trio head Champion Hurdle entries

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Faugheen: bids to retain Champion Hurdle crown in March

Faugheen: bids to retain Champion Hurdle crown in March

  PICTURE: Getty Images  

 By Jack Haynes 12:01PM 20 JAN 2016 

NICKY HENDERSON boasts five entries for the £400,000 Grade 1 Stan James Champion Hurdle, though Willie Mullins once again looks to hold the key with the three market principals, notably 4-7 favourite Faugheen, among the select 19 entries for the two-mile championship contest.

Last year’s winner will bid to retain his title on the opening day of the Festival on Tuesday, March 15, when he is likely to once again to do battle with 2015 Champion Hurdle second and stablemate Arctic Fire, as well as the exciting Nichols Canyon, who shocked the racing world when inflicting a first defeat on Faugheen at Punchestown in November.

Henderson’s quintet includes last year’s JCB Triumph Hurdle victor Peace And Co, who is set to make his second start of the season at Haydock on Saturday, as well as the second and third in the 2015 championship juvenile hurdle, Top Notch and Hargam.

My Tent Or Yours, who has not been seen since a disappointing third in the QTS Scottish Champion Hurdle at Ayr in April 2014, and Sign Of A Victory complete Henderson’s entries, while champion trainer Paul Nicholls is double handed with Old Guard and All Yours.

Improvers

Ireland’s sole other entry, bar Mullins’ leading market trio and Sempre Medici, is the Henry de Bromhead-trained Identity Thief, who continues to improve with each run and should give each-way punters a run for their money, while the same might also be said for James Ewart-trained Aristo Du Plessis, who has won six of his last seven starts.

Ewart is set to test the waters with his stable star in the £25,000 Scottish County Handicap Hurdle at Musselburgh on February 7 before deciding whether to run the progressive six-year-old in the Champion Hurdle.

The Dumfries-based trainer said: “Aristo Du Plessis is the flagship horse for us and we will consider our options after Musselburgh. We could go to Cheltenham but he is still a young horse and his main aim this season is the Scottish Champion Hurdle in April.

“But if he runs very well at Musselburgh and everybody is in agreement, the Champion Hurdle will be seriously considered.”

‘Tremendously exciting’

Owned by John and Jill Dodd, Aristo Du Plessis is a 66-1 chance for the Grade 1 hurdle at Cheltenham with Stan James, though Ewart is excited by his star hurdler.

He said: “We will know a lot more after Musselburgh. If he wins there and the handicapper raises him another 8lb then he would be rated the same as Peace And Co and would be entitled to be there.

“It is tremendously exciting to have a horse like him – I have been training here since 2004 and I have had only two runners at the Cheltenham Festival because it is so hard to produce a horse good enough to go there, let alone to compete in a Grade 1 blue riband contest like the Champion Hurdle. It is what we all work for.”

Other entries

Other notable entries include dual Grade 1 winner The New One, recent Relkeel Hurdle scorer Camping Ground and the John Ferguson-trained pair Parlour Games and Purple Bay.

Ed Nicholson, head of marketing at Unibet Group Racing, parent company of Stan James, said: “As sponsors, and racing enthusiasts, we are delighted with the strength in depth to the entries in this year’s Stan James Champion Hurdle – it is a who’s who of two-mile hurdling.”

 

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