Constitution Hill set for racecourse gallop 

Leading David Power Jockeys’ Cup contender Nico De Boinville is hopeful that a racecourse gallop at Kempton will put the Unibet Champion Hurdle favourite Constitution Hill in perfect shape for the Cheltenham Festival. 

Constitution Hill, the 2023 winner of the Champion Hurdle, looks one of De Boinville’s best chances of picking up 10 Jockeys’ Cup points at next month’s festival, and the Nicky Henderson-trained runner has returned to action with two wins this season after missing most of 2024 through injury. 

Previously, the unbeaten hurdler – who was Timeform’s highest-rated novice and is only 5 lb below the highest-rated hurdler ever Night Nurse – was ruled out of last season’s Cheltenham Festival not long after trailing home in third behind two stablemates, including Sir Gino, following a racecourse gallop over around a circuit and a half of the all-weather track last February, but connections are keen to go back this week. 

“Given how his work has evolved, it makes sense to take him to Kempton,” De Boinville said on Racing TV’s Luck On Sunday programme. 

“I don’t think it’s necessarily going to be a piece of work – it’s going to be more of an awayday rather than anything blistering. 

“There was a mutual agreement between me and Nicky to go to Kempton and it will do him good to get him on a racecourse and get his blood up a bit. We’ll see what happens.” 

History repeating?

Looking back at last year’s bitterly disappointing piece of work on the same track, right under the media spotlight, De Boinville admitted he wanted the ground to swallow him up. 

He said: “Last year it told us what not to do, and although to the eye it might not look spectacular, these awaydays have tended to show us something and we’ve learned a lot from them. 

“As soon as I turned in on the gallop last year and went to push the button, the button was broken. It was a case of stopping him, getting the vets in and seeing what was going on. It was pretty gut-wrenching. All the press and cameras were around you and you just wanted to get out of there.” 

Reflecting on Constitution Hill’s victory last month, he added: “We were on a hiding to nothing on Trials day. No one would take us anywhere in the race and it turned into a hack round. He wouldn’t have blown a candle out afterwards. 

“You always want perfection and I didn’t have the revs up going into the last. He wasn’t alive enough under me and I should have got in close and popped it.”