2025 Champion Hurdle

[Lobos]

Willie on Anzadam:

"He looks something special. I couldn't get him out last season, his form in France was good. I didn't know what was going to happen on Saturday to be honest, and was very pleasantly surprised with what he did. It was just an awesome performance."

He added: "He'll be turning five and has to take on Grade 1 horses now. It's going to be difficult to find where we're going to produce him next, but the International Hurdle at Cheltenham could be an option."

Don't think he'd be going International. Lossie will deffo go there again. Xmas Hurdle too soon for him as well I reckon as he's very lightly raced.

[archie]

Willie said he would need to see the weights for the International. She's incurred the top penalty (partially offset by the mares allowance) and it looks like the penalty structure for the race might have changed as well.

[ComplyOrDie]

Don't think he'd be going International. Lossie will deffo go there again. Xmas Hurdle too soon for him as well I reckon as he's very lightly raced.

One will come over for the Christmas Hurdle, I'm sure. Not sure which yet though. Not State Man though. Still think it could be Lossie.

[Lobos]

Willie said he would need to see the weights for the International. She's incurred the top penalty (partially offset by the mares allowance) and it looks like the penalty structure for the race might have changed as well.

Shed still prove good enough as it's rarely a deep race. Perfect time wise which is the most important point.

[AaronLad]

I'm thinking Lossiemouth gets an amended OR of 162 after yesterday. Add the 7lbs and that brings her to within 6lbs of Constitution Hill very best. You can see now how little she has to find ,if any at all, to be a very competitive match with him. She has further improvement in her as well imo.

Why do you add 7lbs to the OR?

the handicapper includes the allowance in his rating.

I'm at work but when I get home I'm going to explain this properly

[Quevega]

Why do you add 7lbs to the OR?

the handicapper includes the allowance in his rating.

I'm at work but when I get home I'm going to explain this properly

Don't think he does.
Think I know where you may be coming from though.

If a mare rated 160 met a gelding rated 160 in a handicap then they would carry the same weight.

But Lobos is referring to the allowance as "a positive" in a graded race where the same mare would get a 7lb allowance against the same gelding.
Effectively meaning in a graded race the mare is running off "167", or alternatively the gelding has been forced to run off "167".

It's therefore common for people to consider mares that run in graded races against geldings to be 7lb higher or better off than the comparitive ratings of the geldings

[Lobos]

Well said Q. Just increase the Mares rating or reduce the Geldings rating. Either way will do. Whatever way you look at it, the 7lbs for Mares as good as Lossiemouth or BDA is not fair at all and puts them at a serious advantage and is hard to overcome. I'm not complaining though !!

[The hill]

Willie on Anzadam:

"He looks something special. I couldn't get him out last season, his form in France was good. I didn't know what was going to happen on Saturday to be honest, and was very pleasantly surprised with what he did. It was just an awesome performance."

He added: "He'll be turning five and has to take on Grade 1 horses now. It's going to be difficult to find where we're going to produce him next, but the International Hurdle at Cheltenham could be an option."

Let's hope it's aimed at the CH as I can't see the owners having 3 in the race meaning SG could go the Arkle

[Lobos]

Anzadam the one for money in the CH. 40's into 25's with PP and Blue across the boards.

[Lobos]

Let's hope it's aimed at the CH as I can't see the owners having 3 in the race meaning SG could go the Arkle

He'll definitely not be going back chasing this season imo regardless of what Constitution Hill does. That said, with the emergence of Anzadam, of the 3 Donnelly horses I now think that Sir Gino would most likely be the one to miss the CH and possibly be saved for Aintree. He's 5 and can go CH the following year or go chasing then. He's 7/2 and Anzadam is 33/1. Both are now rated virtually on a par after very similar performances at the weekend. Both should easily improve again and their next races will tell us more. Anzadam, having had just the three runs might just be capable of the most improvement. All of which is enough for me to add Anzadam EW for the race.

[Black Dog]

Sir Gino the one for money in the Arkle, blue across the board.
Anzadam available at 33's Champion Hurdle with 365.

[opatcho]

I must be missing something with Anzadam, other than the price and a potential “why run three when you have two”

he’s won a race for 4 year olds, yeah it was a good performance 1st time out, but still…

if the international is his next target then, he’ll only jump twice outside of France here before the CH.

as for Sir Gino? I just hope they make a decision sooner rather than later re: CH or Arkle or skip, but we all know they’ll leave it late.

little tried of this atm, you have trainers that are too dominate (Willie can send 3-4 here), and similar with some owners

aware this is the current state of play, but as a race goer, how can anyone get excited about a race when we all know half of them won’t turn up and opt for easier opportunities to spread trainer/owners chances of winning. Don’t blame them, but still….

Sir Gino should be on the arkle, but likley to mess him up

Lossiemouth should be in this race, simple as that
BDA just beat the current CH champ, but likely to be in the mares

**yeah.. just one of those mornings lol. Rant over :-)

[Eudipe]

Where else can you go with Anzadam now? He's blown his mark... I reckon he's run to an OR of at least 148 at the weekend and has massive scope for improvement on that. I reckon Sir Gino has run to about 152 at the weekend and also has decent scope for improvement but for me he's got so much more potential as a novice chaser. From the owner's point of view it could make sense to take that route with him and have Anzadam as a second string to State Man.

[Carnage at Taunton]

OR not RPR Carnage. Just saying that the gap has closed and there isn't that much between them . That's saying CH will hit his best as well which is highly debatable.

Ah ok, ratings mixed up.
Its still unknown to me exactly how both horses should be rated.
I’ve been saying for some time that I think CH is 180 plus
And I ain’t got a clue what Lossie should be!!
Gut says she’s higher than 160 though, and probably a fair bit higher. Time will tell on that.
Anyway it’s all irrelevant if CH don’t get back.

[Carnage at Taunton]

I must be missing something with Anzadam, other than the price and a potential “why run three when you have two”

he’s won a race for 4 year olds, yeah it was a good performance 1st time out, but still…

if the international is his next target then, he’ll only jump twice outside of France here before the CH.

as for Sir Gino? I just hope they make a decision sooner rather than later re: CH or Arkle or skip, but we all know they’ll leave it late.

little tried of this atm, you have trainers that are too dominate (Willie can send 3-4 here), and similar with some owners

aware this is the current state of play, but as a race goer, how can anyone get excited about a race when we all know half of them won’t turn up and opt for easier opportunities to spread trainer/owners chances of winning. Don’t blame them, but still….

Sir Gino should be on the arkle, but likley to mess him up

Lossiemouth should be in this race, simple as that
BDA just beat the current CH champ, but likely to be in the mares

**yeah.. just one of those mornings lol. Rant over :-)

I think they have already decided that SG stays hurdling, and will be going CHurdle.
Just cannot see them starting a chase career halfway through the season with a 4/5 year old.
And to be fair, he’s earned the right to go for the CH, especially this one.
The current champ has been beaten and the best hurdler is still out.
The race as it stands is now much more open.