Horse Racing

Cheltenham Festival News: Constitution Hill owner "frightened" of Dysart Dynamo, Sir Gerhard et al

Planet Sport writerStaff Writer28 February 2022
constitution hill

constitution hill

Nicky Henderson's Constitution Hill is a worthy favourite for the Supreme Novices' Hurdle at Cheltenham but owner Michael Buckley is not counting his chickens.

Constitution Hill owner Michael Buckley is naturally cautious about Constitution Hill's Supreme Novices' Hurdle rivals at the Cheltenham Festival.

The Nicky Henderson trained five-year-old is the current favourite for the eagerly-awaited Festival curtain-raiser but comes up against a fiercely competitive field including the likes of Willie Mullins' Dysart Dynamo and Sir Gerhard.

Most recently successful in the Tolworth Hurdle by 12 lengths, Constitution Hill is a best-priced 9-4 chance to claim a Cheltenham success but will have to get past the aforementioned rivals as well as stablemate Jonbon plus Kilcruit and Mighty Potter.

Sir Gerhard was a six-length winner at the Dublin Racing Festival, but having watched the race, Buckley felt his jumping left something to be desired.

"I didn't think he jumped particularly well at Leopardstown, Willie said after the race that he'd missed a couple in the middle of the race, well he didn't jump the last particularly well," he told Sky Sports Racing.
"I thought he landed on his hind legs from memory, but having said that he beat a lot of what were purported to be good horses very easily.
"He's a very strong travelling horse and he left a lot of horses a long way back."
The progessive Dysart Dynamo took the Grade 2 Moscow Flyer Novice Hurdle by 19 lengths in January, but there could be some questions over the depth of the form and Buckley pointed to Constitution Hill's Tolworth defeat of Jetoile, who was then last in the Betfair Hurdle, as an example of how topsy turvy novice races can be.
"Dysart Dynamo won by 19 lengths and I don't know how good the horses were in the race," he said.
"I haven't really studied it and also because they were running in Ireland, I don't really know the form, but none of us know the form of these novice hurdles really.
"The horse that Constitution Hill beat in the Tolworth (Jetoile) was last in the Betfair, it's a tall order to expect any horse to make all in the way that he tried to do.
"I don't know if he was fine or whether they used the horse up too much, also making all the running in that race and trying to make the running in a small field in the Tolworth on much heavier ground are different things."

Buckley is very mindful of the Supreme hands held by Gordon Elliott and Henry de Bromhead, with Mullins' Kilcruit, in particular, catching his eye.

"They're all very unexposed, I'm frightened of all of them," he said.
"You talk about Willie's and Jonbon, but Gordon will have something in it and Henry de Bromhead, there's going to be, even in a small field, 12 or 14 runners, so you're going to have to negotiate your way past a lot of good horses.
"Kilcruit might turn out to be a good horse, he was supposed to be, then he ran pretty poorly two or three times and now he's come back to form.
"It'll be a hard race and whoever wins it is going to have a really exciting prospect on their hands."

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