Record sixth Champion Hurdle for Henderson

The Champion Hurdle was supposed to be substandard but Buveur D’Air might be hard to topple now he is hurdling king.

However, Henderson was adamant that he should be in the Champion Hurdle and yet again was proved right.

The two horses are owned by JP McManus, .

“Brain Power has been great, he has done everything”.

Henderson said 4-1 victor had been steeplechasing this year. So he has raced at the Cheltenham Festival twice, and he has danced in twice.

“You feel sorry for My Tent Or Yours”.

He can join exalted names such as Badsworth Boy, Viking Flagship, Moscow Flyer, Master Minded and Sprinter Sacre to have won the Champion Chase and, in the process, provide Mullins with his first victor of the race.

Henderson has now won the race a record six times, after victories with See You Then from 1985-87 as well as with Punjabi in 2009 and Binocular in 2010. He’s just sensational, but the young horse has done it. “I was very happy with him coming down the hill”, said Fehily.

Asked what might be next this season, Henderson said: “It would be hard not to stay over hurdles with him now”.

It was the most extraordinary performance we have seen in a long time and Roger Loughran never had to move a muscle.

This boy is really special and I’m lucky enough to have ridden him before. Back in 2014 he won the Triumph Hurdle over two miles, a race that suits stamina-packed youngsters.

Ireland have to win the Wetherby’s Champion bumper, they invented the race just to give us a chance during the lean years. It’s the horses and the people that make it.

I’m still finalising my riding plans for the week, but the book I have built up is the best I have ever had and I would be very disappointed if I couldn’t add to my three Festival winners.

The Willie Mullins-trained Melon (5/2) heads the market for the opening Supreme Novices’ Hurdle but my two against the field are the favourite’s stablemate Bunk Off Early (5/1 at BetVictor) and Ballyandy (3.15) who is 10/3 second favourite at BetVictor. Henry de Bromhead’s horse is a high-class chaser, he was third in the Champion Chase a year ago, beaten a nostril by Un De Sceaux for second and just three and a half lengths behind Sprinter Sacre. That question has been posed many times since Acapello Bourgeois decimated his rivals in the three-mile Grade 2 Ten Up Chase at Navan.

The Champion Hurdle is the feature race on the first day of the Festival, closely followed by the National Hunt Challenge Cup, which remains one of the oldest sporting contests in the world and will be running its 147 renewal on Tuesdayevening.

“We tried to put the others under pressure”.

Last year’s festival went down in history as one of the most expensive weeks in living memory for us, so we are praying that we can try and fix some of the damage this year’. David Pipe’s Moon Racer was pulled up after a bad mistake.