The fog that has blanketed the top of the Champion Hurdle market for months could start to lift on Sunday week, after Willie Mullins said on Thursday that Faugheen and Annie Power, the first and second favourites for the race, are both progressing well towards making their respective seasonal debuts at Leopardstown on 29 January and Punchestown on 22 February.
Faugheen and Annie Power are the last two winners of the Champion Hurdle and are currently top-priced at 9-4 and 5-1 for this year’s race on 14 March. Faugheen is unraced since suffering an injury in the run-up to last year’s Festival, while Annie Power has not seen a track since following up her Champion Hurdle success in March 2016 with victory in the Aintree Hurdle at Liverpool the following month.
“They both worked nicely this morning so I’m very pleased with them,” Mullins said at Thurles on Thursday. “Both horses are pleasing me a lot more now than they had been so we’re well on course with both of them at the moment. We’ll see how they go between now and then [the Irish Champion Hurdle at Leopardstown on 29 January]. I’d like to get Faugheen there and probably get Annie Power to that mares’ race at Punchestown [the Mares’ Hurdle, which she won last year]. That would be the ideal scenario.”
Annie Power’s victory at Punchestown 11 months ago was little more than a schooling session against two inferior rivals in a race for which she started the 1-20 favourite. However, it coincided with the news that Faugheen, the hot favourite to defend his crown, had damaged a suspensory ligament and propelled her to the head of the Champion Hurdle market. Having been supplemented for the race at a cost of £20,000, she went on to beat My Tent Or Yours by four and a half lengths with another Mullins-trained runner, Nichols Canyon, back in third.
Both Annie Power and Faugheen run in the pink colours of Rich Ricci, the leading owner in the Mullins stable, and it is still unclear whether Ricci would consider running the two horses against each other. Annie Power was narrowly beaten in the World Hurdle in 2014 and fell at the final flight with the Mares’ Hurdle at her mercy 12 months later.
Possible rivals for Faugheen in the Irish Champion Hurdle on Sunday week include Petit Mouchoir, who was an impressive winner of the Grade One Ryanair Hurdle at Leopardstown’s Christmas meeting with Nichols Canyon seven lengths adrift in second.
Petit Mouchoir was trained by Mullins until his split with the leading owner Michael O’Leary last autumn, as was Apples Jade, last year’s outstanding juvenile hurdler and another possible runner against Faugheen on Sunday week.
Sizing John advanced his case for the Ryanair Chase at the Festival in March with a battling success in the feature event at Thurles, the Kinloch Brae Chase. Sub Lieutenant, the 11-10 favourite, seemed to have Sizing John’s measure with a furlong to run, but Jessica Harrington’s runner stayed on much better to win by two and a half lengths with Mullins’s Black Hercules, the winner of the JLT Novice Chase at Cheltenham last March, only third, another 12 lengths behind Sub Lieutenant.
Sizing John is now the second-favourite for the Ryanair Chase with most bookmakers at a top price of 10-1, in a market headed by Mullins’s Un De Sceaux, the favourite for Saturday’s Grade One Clarence House Chase at Ascot, at 4-1.
Mullins reported on Thursday that Un De Sceaux has already left for Ascot, although there are concerns that the meeting could be threatened by frost with freezing conditions forecast for the track on Friday night.
“He did a nice bit of work this week, and he’s on his way over with Whiteout, who runs in the mares’ hurdle [on the same card],” Mullins said. “Hopefully he can do the job, I hear there’s a bit of frost over there but we’ll have to see what happens.
“It would probably look that way [that Un De Sceaux will run in the Ryanair Chase] but who knows what will happen and who knows about the weather. This [clear] weather is extraordinary, I’ve never seen as nice a day at Thurles at this time of year. We’ve got good ground at home, and in other years, you couldn’t school or do anything on it. We could easily do that if we wanted to at the moment.”
Chris Stickels, Ascot’s clerk of the course, confirmed on Thursday that an inspection is likely at the track on Saturday morning.
“The current going is soft, frozen in places,” Stickels said. “Following temperatures of minus 4.5C on Wednesday morning and minus 4C this morning, the course is frozen in places. Landings and take-offs and part of the shadowed area on the straight were covered on Tuesday. There is frost and small areas of frozen ground however, under the covers.
“The forecast has changed again to indicate temperatures to be below freezing for the next two mornings. Given this current forecast, it is likely that we will be holding an inspection, to decide if racing can go ahead, on Saturday morning.”
