Binocular put focus firmly on the Champion Hurdle

Thankfully, I"m out of the hospital in time for Christmas, I got home in time for the weekend"s racing and there was some incredible action on Saturday at Ascot. Binocular was incredible, it"s the only way to describe that performance. You could argue that the race was set up for him, maybe Katchit isn"t quite the horse he was while Chomba Womba probably isn"t a champion hurdler. Regardless of that, you could only be impressed with the winner, with his slick jumping and the way he quickened up. Then we had Barry Geraghty doing a double. First with Punchestowns in the Long Walk Hurdle and Sentry Duty in the race Sky hall was in. Punchestowns win was every bit as exciting over three miles as Binocular was over two and I"d say we haven"t seen anything else produce the speed that Barry"s horse produced. It was probably fortunate for Nicky Henderson that he was able to recruit a jockey of the calibre of Barry Geraghty after Mick Fitzgerald retired. Success seems to follow Barry around and long may that continue for him, he"s a very capable jockey and a man you would want on your best horses. Barry has proved that he has the right temperament for the big occasion, he"s an ideal first jockey for anyone. After Jered ran the last day, the owner (JP McManus) decided that it might be better to keep him for the Spring as it was felt that he wouldn"t handle very soft ground after he finished third to Hardy Eustace on heavy going at Punchestown in November. Jered is enjoying a break at the moment, but he will be coming back to us after Christmas. It would be my hope that we will be training him for a tilt at the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham next March, despite the fact that JP looks to have the favourite for that race already in Binocular. JP wouldn"t be averse to having more than one runner in the race anyway and if Jered is considered good enough, then I expect that he will run. The one person who will be more than happy with the latest developments will be Paul Carberry as he will have the ride on Jered because Tony McCoy would be on Binocular. I suppose you could say it"s a problem for an owner like JP McManus, but then there"s only one Cheltenham Champion Hurdle and it"s not a bad complaint to have more than one horse that could be considered as a contender. There are a couple of other horses to be considered as well, we have Muirhead and we can"t forget about Harchibald either, they could both feature at the business end of the Champion Hurdle also. Harchibald will probably be on his travels this weekend, hopefully it will be third time lucky when we go to England again, the last two times he didn"t get a run, but it should be all systems go for the Christmas Hurdle at Kempton on Friday where we will probably run into Barry Geraghty and Punjabi. It all depends on how he works this week, his schedule was disrupted a little with all that travelling to Newcastle and Cheltenham which were both abandoned due to the weather, but he seems to be in good enough shape. I"m also delighted to be back in action after a spell on the sidelines, I"ve been told to take it easy for a few weeks and I"m lucky, as I"ve said before, to have a very good team looking after the horses. Paul Cullen and Damien McGillic are the main men. When I was in hospital, Damien, or Les as he"s more commonly know, was up with me most days going through the work diary and updating me on all the horses. That"s demanding on an individual and it was great to know that I was able to rely on everyone. We also have the likes of Peter Kavanagh, Nina Carberry, Emmet Butterly, Jason McKeown, Luke McNiff, MJ Doran, Tim Carroll and Darragh Burke. They are all very important to the whole operation. Luke was very unlucky at Ascot on Saturday, he was in a challenging position on Sky Hall when they fell at the third last, he just tried to reach for the hurdle which was down slightly after the horse in front of him hit it, he just caught the top of it. An incident like that probably wouldn"t have happened with the EasyFix hurdles, but that"s the way it goes. At least with the EasyFix hurdles there won"t be any walk-throughs like you can get at the moment. It means that your horse has to be able to jump. With the standard hurdles, if you had a dodgy jumper, the jockey could stay at the back of the field and might not have to jump anything as they would be all flattened. Looking at Navan last Saturday, Quempton disappointed in the first race. Paul Carberry reckoned it was the worst ground he had ever ridden on. Archiestown couldn"t handle it either and Rochford Bridge didn"t fare much better although he was third. Still, the ground worked in Paul"s favour when he won on Newbay Prop for Tony Martin. That was an extraordinary race as Got The Urge was about 10 lengths clear jumping the last and almost stopped on the run in whereas Newbay Prop just kept going and got there in time. This weekend will be busy with three meetings here on Friday along with Harchibald going to Kempton. One to watch at Down Royal could be Cottage Oak in a maiden hurdle, it will be his first run since the Champion Bumper at Cheltenham in March and I"d be hopeful that he might make the frame. Clarnazar might also be worth considering for a beginners" chase. Realt Dubh and Corskeagh Royale are likely to run at Leopardstown and hopefully one of them will win and Right Or Wrong will be taking his chances at Limerick. Donna"s Palm will run in the big race at Leopardstown on Saturday, the Future Champions Novice Hurdle, and Go Native will also run in that race. Bridge Run and Parsons Pistol have the Paddy Power Chase as their target as has Cleni Boy, but he mightn"t get in as he is well down the order in terms of the ballot. Aitmatov will probably go for the December Festival Hurdle at Leopardstown next Monday and Cleni Boy might have to opt for an Opportunity Chase that day also. Mr Muji appears to be well in at the weights in a hurdle race on the Monday and could be worth following. Hopefully, some of those horses might ease the burden on the pocket. Enjoy your Christmas celebrations. n Visit Noel Meade"s website: www.noelmeade.com