Novice hurdlers: A mid-season review

The novice hurdle contests at the Cheltenham Festival are often some of the most exciting races of the whole week, with future stars – anything from Champion Hurdlers to Gold Cup winners – emerging from the Supreme, the Neptune and the Albert Bartlett year after year.                            

At the moment, however, the Supreme in particular looks a potentially weaker renewal than it has done at this stage in recent years, and it says a lot that Melon has been catapulted to the head of the market after winning a weak-looking Leopardstown maiden last Sunday, albeit in impressive fashion. Melon displaced 2015 Champion Bumper winner Moon Racer at the top of the betting for the Festival opener, and while it is hard to argue with the latter’s near-flawless overall record and his perfect record at Cheltenham, the rating he achieved in the Sharp Novices’ Hurdle in November wasn’t anything special for the grade.

Plenty of top novice prospects have emerged from the Moscow Flyer at Punchestown in recent years (won by Vautour, Douvan and Min), but Willie Mullins’ sole runner this time around, Crack Mome, failed to justify short odds and subsequently doubled in price for the Supreme. The winner Any Second Now looked a smart enough prospect, though his trainer’s comments after the race, where he suggested that one “might be clutching at straws” if expecting him to follow up at the Festival, was hardly encouraging.

The main contenders for the Neptune seem a stronger bunch at this stage, with Finian’s Oscar looking an exciting prospect following his win in the Tolworth Hurdle on just his second start under Rules. That race proved the key to last year’s Neptune, and though Yorkhill achieved a higher performance rating when winning the 2016 Tolworth, Finian’s Oscar could potentially be just as good. Neon Wolf looked a novice out of the top drawer when winning the Rossington Main last time, though based on comments from his connections he is not guaranteed to run at the Festival.

The Albert Bartlett – not always a fantastic Grade 1, but one that has produced the likes of Bobs Worth and this season’s dominant staying hurdler Unowhatimeanharry – is shaping up quite well after the performances of West Approach (third in the Cleeve Hurdle) and Wholestone (improved again to win the Classic Novices’ Hurdle) last weekend. That pair could provide a strong home challenge against the current favourite, Gordon Elliott’s unbeaten hurdler Death Duty, who was strong at the finish when winning a Grade 1 over two and a half miles at Naas in early-January.

How do this season’s group of novice hurdlers compare to previous seasons at the same stage? The graph below shows the number of hurdlers to achieve a performance rating above a certain level by the end of January in each season since 2010/11 (blue line shows this season).

The graph shows that there are a comparatively large number of horses with performance ratings over 120, but only one novice has run to a performance rating of higher than 150 this season – Thistlecrack’s half-brother West Approach. Is there a lack of overall quality? Looking at the top 20 runners from each year should reveal more.

Barring West Approach, who is very much out on his own so far on performance ratings at this stage in 2016/17, the graph does highlight that this season’s novice hurdlers are perhaps a pretty average bunch as things stand (stack of horses rated in the low-140s).

But, do ratings at this stage of  the season have much of a bearing on the major spring prizes?

Looking at the stand-out contenders in recent years should tell us more. The two horses well clear of the pack in 2010/11 were none other than Silviniaco Conti and Cue Card, while Fingal Bay, Boston Bob and Simonsig were the three to run to above 150 in 2011/12. Interestingly the highest pre-February performance rating in 2012/13 came from subsequent Grand National winner Rule The World (if this study had been conducted a year before, I’m sure we would have all have been on at 50/1 for the National!). Despite finishing second, he had a higher rating than that year’s Neptune winner The New One and third-placed Pont Alexandre, as well as the Albert Bartlett winner At Fishers Cross in what was something of a high-quality start to the season for novice hurdlers in ratings terms. The next year was something of a blow for followers of this system, with no real superstar emerging from Briar Hill (who ran to a massive 159 in a Naas novice hurdle before falling when 2/1 for the Albert Bartlett), Royal Boy or Josses Hill, though the last-named was a good second in the Supreme behind Vautour. L’ami Serge achieved a big rating when winning the 2015 Tolworth but could only manage fourth in the Supreme (behind Douvan), though Martello Tower (154 at this stage of the season) won the Albert Bartlett. No More Heroes was third in that race and, along with Black Hercules and Outlander, completed a group of four subsequent Grade 1 winners from the 2014/15 crop of novices rated over 150. Just two horses had exceeded a performance rating of 150 at this stage last season, Yanworth (154) and Altior (158), and both won Grade 1s since.

The fact that there is only one horse from the current crop to run to a performance rating of 150 or above doesn’t necessarily mean that there aren’t other superstars lurking, however. Yorkhill, Douvan and Vautour are just a few of the names which haven’t fallen in to that category at the same stage in their novice season in recent years, and the likes of Death Duty, Wholestone, Neon Wolf, Ailie Beach, Finian’s Oscar and Willoughby Court are all poised on ratings in the mid-to-high 140s.

Interestingly, it seems that prime contenders for the Albert Bartlett seem to have mostly revealed their hands by the end of January; Bobs Worth (149), Brindisi Breeze (146), Boston Bob (155), At Fishers Cross (151), Very Wood (146), Martello Tower (154) and Unowhatimeanharry (144) all achieved big ratings before the end of the month. It seems that this year is no different in that regard, with the two novice hurdlers with the highest performance ratings – West Approach and Death Duty – both featuring prominently in the betting for this year’s renewal.