Golden Ace, the reigning champion over hurdles but dismissed in the betting as a 22-1 outsider, won a dramatic Fighting Fifth Hurdle at Newcastle on Saturday.
Constitution Hill, the 2023 Champion Hurdle winner, suffered a third fall in four starts at the second while The New Lion fell when leading the field two out, before Golden Ace, the only mare in the race, held off the challenge of Willie Mullins’s Anzadam to claim the spoils.
The result was a vindication for the willingness of Jeremy Scott, Golden Ace’s trainer, to take on the best hurdlers with his seven-year-old, and a near facsimile of her win in a similarly dramatic Champion Hurdle in March, when Constitution Hill was again an early faller and State Man came down when clear at the last.
The focus in the run-up to the race, seen as one of the strongest runnings of the Fighting Fifth in the its 56-year history, had focused entirely on Constitution Hill, The New Lion and Anzadam, who were all quoted at single-figure odds for next year’s Champion Hurdle as the five runners went to post.
Constitution Hill arrived with his lifeless display in the Champion Hurdle at Punchestown in May still a raw memory for his fans and backers. Having travelled smoothly enough to the third-last, the favourite had simply folded without raising even a hint of a challenge, and the sense was of a racehorse that wanted to be do anything but race.
After two crashing falls in the space of a few weeks, first in the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham and then in the Liverpool Hurdle at Aintree, it was an understandable reaction, but the mental scars of a fall can endure long after a horse is physically back to full fitness. The question, then, as Constitution Hill set foot on a track for the first time since Punchestown, was whether the long summer break had been enough to reset his competitive edge.
It did not take long to get an answer. Constitution Hill jumped the first well but at the second, he put down as if unsure of what he was trying to do, clipped the hurdle and crashed out. Whether there is any way back for him now remains to be seen.
For his younger rivals, the stakes were different. Both The New Lion and Anzadam arrived at Newcastle with unbeaten records, after five and four starts respectively, but also with time very much on their side. The New Lion was dropping back to the minimum two-mile trip for the first time over hurdles, having won two Grade Ones at two-and-a-half miles in his novice season, while the five-year-old Anzadam, the youngest in the field, was a prime candidate to fill the gap in Mullins’s hurdling team after State Man was ruled out for the season by injury.
Both Constitution Hill and The New Lion were apparently uninjured after their falls, while the Champion Hurdle betting was swiftly rearranged. Lossiemouth is now the 2-1 favourite (from 3-1) with William Hill, with The New Lion unchanged at 7-2 and Constitution Hill out to 10-1 from 9-2. Anzadam is a 10-1 chance (from 6-1) while Golden Ace is 14-1 (from 25-1) for a repeat success. – Guardian
