The 2025 Unibet Champion Hurdle: runner-by-runner guide

Never mind the quantity, feel the quality.

Just seven runners will line up in the Unibet Champion Hurdle on Tuesday but we could be in for an epic with the unbeaten Constitution Hill  seeking to regain the crown he won in spectacular style in 2023.

He will be up against the horse who took his title 12 months ago, State Man, who has 11 Grade One wins to his name, plus an exceptional mare in Brighterdaysahead.

Lossiemouth has not been declared, but her defection to the Mares' Hurdle has led to Golden Ace making the opposite switch.

Below, I've had a go at forecasting where each will finish.

Racing TV is the only place where you will be able to watch every race at Cheltenham, with our coverage beginning at 10am every day.

Festival form: 11. Grade One wins: 8. Odds: 8-11. 

There’s something magical about an unbeaten racehorse. Ten runs under Rules have yielded ten wins for the peerless Constitution Hill by an aggregate of 104 lengths. 

It was only a couple of months ago that some folks were consigning him to a retirement home after a below-par workout at Newbury. It seemed a trickle of negative news surrounding him during 2024 was never going to stop and we had almost a year of sporadic sicknotes. 

But then came that glorious, history-making third success in the Christmas Hurdle at Kempton last month (watch below), when Constitution Hill showed all, or at least most, of his powers remain intact. It was followed by an easy win in the Unibet Hurdle at Cheltenham against inferior opposition, when an error at the last did little to halt his momentum. The king is not dead, long live the king! 

Between December 2021 and December 2023, he was imperious. Eight emphatic victories, seven of them at the highest level including in the 2023 Champion Hurdle, saw his official rating soar to 175, putting him behind only Istabraq and Faugheen (both 176) and on a par with Hurricane Fly since the classifications were founded in 1999-2000. 

But then came a catalogue of missed races and setbacks last year before that memorable comeback at Kempton. Constitution Hill travelled with his customary ease, jumped with his usual elan and fended off the exciting Lossiemouth, who herself unlucky not to line up unbeaten in ten races, by 2½ lengths. 

The first 95 per cent of his performance suggested he was as good as ever. It was just the final 5 per cent that left a nagging doubt that maybe he isn't quite the force he once was.

Nico De Boinville had to resort to using his Pro-Cush in the closing stages and the 142-rated Burdett Road would not have been beaten far had he not blundered at the final flight. For once, there didn’t look a lot more left in the tank and a subdued Lossiemouth ended up getting within hailing distance despite looking as if she would be well beaten for much of the way. 

However, the returning champ was surely entitled to get weary after his absence and interrupted preparation, not least given the honest pace of the race. The winning time was about 7sec quicker than he had achieved under similar conditions the previous year, so comparisons between him winning as he liked in 2023, when in rude health, and having to roll up his sleeves in 2024 after a lengthy period on the sidelines are probably worthless. 

Henderson seemed inclined to head straight to the Cheltenham Festival after that success but Constitution Hill came out of it so well that he reappeared in the Unibet Hurdle at Cheltenham a month later and was not extended to beat vastly inferior rivals, despite a late blunder.

As connections have been keen to stress, none of Constitution Hill’s most vital working parts - tendons, ligaments, legs, heart - have been affected during his travails. He looked on great terms with himself in a gallop at Kempton at the end of last month, and when schooling last week.

Festival form: 2. Grade One wins: 3. Odds: 9-4. 

The "will she run, or won’t she run?" saga was resolved eight days before the big race. She will, and racing is the winner.

Nobody can dispute that Brighterdaysahead has earned a crack at the Champion Hurdle, but connections also had the option of running her in the Mares’ Hurdle. 

The messages had been mixed, to say the least, with connections teasingly swaying one way and then the other. Gordon Elliott has been chief riddler, suggesting she might be a Champion Hurdle contender before her reappearance this season (when most of us had not entertained the race for her), only to seemingly cool on the idea (when everyone considered her an outstanding candidate!) before saying he was keen, but that Michael O'Leary [the owner] might not be.

“Look, I just want to have a winner on the Tuesday at Cheltenham, whichever race that is,” he said after Brighterdaysahead’s stunning 30-length demolition job in the Neville Hotel Hurdle at Leopardstown over Christmas.

Her task was made easier by State Man running well below-par but the clock does not lie. She won in a time that was almost almost 5sec quicker than standard, helped by her stablemate, King Of Kingsfield, in the same ownership, acting as a pacemaker and setting solid fractions. 

Brighterdaysahead had previously won the Morgiana Hurdle at Punchestown, digging deep to repel State Man, who was having his first run of the season and was possibly at a fitness disadvantage. Most assumed the latter would turn the tables at Leopardstown, but she gave him a pummelling. 

Her only defeat in 10 races came at the Festival last year, when she suffered a surprise defeat at the hands of Golden Ace in the Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle. A muddling gallop and average round of jumping were factors in that reverse, which she went some way to avenging when easily going one better against the boys in the Mersey Novices’ Hurdle at Aintree the following month. 

Nobody can be in doubt that she’s been held in the highest regard from day one.  Her victories have been glued together by a string of glowing post-race compliments. It's great that she will be allowed to do her own talking in the main event. 

Festival form: 121. Grade One wins: 11. Odds: 8-1. 

State Man cannot win this year’s Champion Hurdle. That’s not me saying that; it’s the stats. The past 10 winners of the race have all lined up unbeaten that season: Faugheen (111), Annie Power (11), Buveur D’Air (111), Buveur D’Air (111), Espoir D’Allen (111), Epatante (11), Honeysuckle (11), Honeysuckle again (111), Constitiution Hill (11) and State Man (111). 

So State Man's two defeats this term mean you can scrub him from your calculations.

I'm only kidding, of course he can retain his crown, although only two Champion Hurdle winners (Buveur D’Air and Honeysuckle) have done that in the past decade. You can get 8-1 about Stage Man emulating them and it’s easy to understand why there has not been a stampede to the doors of the bookmakers, for all that he will be the most prolific big-race winner in the line-up. 

His record of big-race wins is commendable, but he’s always been more about efficiency than extravagance, and he was underwhelming when scrambling home from inferior rivals in last year’s Champion Hurdle. 

He had been no match for Constitution Hill the previous year, and this time he’s got that rival to deal with once again, not to mention potentially two top-class mares in Brighterdaysahead (who has already beaten him twice this season) and Lossiemouth. 

At least he put a lifeless effort at Leopardstown over Christmas behind him, where he finished a distant third to Brighterdaysahead, when landing a third successive Irish Champion Hurdle on his latest start. The fall of Lossiemouth, four out, basically gifted him the spoils.

He's also twice met Brighterdaysahead this term, when edged out by her in the Morgiana - after shaping best against a rival who had a fitness advantage - and then when thumped by her at Leopardstown over Christmas, when clearly not at his best (like a few of his stablemates at the time).

Festival form: 1. Grade One wins: 0. Odds: 50-1. 

She’s a massive price to follow up her win in the Mares’ Novice Hurdle at the Festival last year, even though she conquered Brighterdaysahead on that occasion. 

Their careers have headed in different directions. Brighterdaysahead has gone from strength to strength, while Golden Ace has come up short in Grade Two contests won by Lucky Place at Ascot and Cheltenham before scrambling home in the Kingwell Hurdle. 

In her defence, those defeats came over about 2m 4f and each time she travelled strongly before not seeing things out. 

The Mares' Hurdle seemed on the cards for her before Lossiemouth was switched to that contest.

Festival form: --. Grade One wins: 0. Odds: 40-1. 

Burdett Road is a classy middle-distance stayer on the Flat who has taken well to hurdling. He established himself as among last season’s top juveniles, although his drubbing at the hands of Sir Gino, on Festival Trials Day, punctured a few dreams that he might one day go to the top. 

His narrow victory in the Greatwood Hurdle at Cheltenham in November owed much to a lenient handicap mark (133) and he ran even better when third behind Constitution Hill and Lossiemouth in the Christmas Hurdle, for all that it also exposed his limitations. 

On his latest start, he was edged out by Golden Ace in the Kingwell Hurdle, again suggesting he's simply not up to this exalted level.

His connections had toyed with reverting to handicap company for the County Hurdle but have decided to let him take his chance. 

Festival form: --. Grade One wins: 0. Odds: 100-1. 

It’s unclear how many horses applied for the job of being pacemaker for Brighterdaysahead but King Of Kingsfield got the gig and probably got some kind of bonus after teeing up the Neville Hotels Hurdleperfectly for her over Christmas. 

It seems he is destined to now go everywhere she goes, apart from when she tackles races exclusively for mares, unless they can find him a disguise. 

King Of Kingsfield would not have been an obvious pacemaker because he’s looked something of a bridle merchant in his former jobs, requiring hold-up tactics to be seen to best advantage. But he was a willing accomplice last time and a similar role will be on the cards. 

Festival form: 40. Grade One wins: 0. Odds: 100-1. 

Hatton's Grace and Sea Pigeon have been 11-year-olds to win the Champion Hurdle but Winter Fog is not in anything like their league.

He won the Grimes Hurdle at Tipperary in cigar-and-slipper mode last July,  but has not  kicked on since.

The gulf in class between the durable 11-year-old and Brighterdaysahead was also there for all to see at Leopardstown over Christmas, while he was a well-held third to State Man in the Irish Champion Hurdle las time.

He's been picking up some crumbs from the top table, and I'd imagine that will again be the ambition.