Today is Champion Hurdle day at Cheltenham and there were many who weren't going to overlook last year's winner Binocular when placing their bets.
Binocular's trainer, Nicky Henderson, was quoted in the Racing Post at the weekend that curlews usually return to his yard at Seven Barrows on the Monday of Festival week, but that this year they were 'back from Norway' two weeks early. It's an interesting observation and fits with the general earlier arrival of spring and of spring migrants.
Henderson's curlews are unlikely to have come back from Norway - they may have been sticking their long curved beaks into the mud on one of our estuaries, perhaps the Severn, or maybe they have been risking being shot in northern France. Like Henderson, those curlews may be hoping that the going is around the 'good to soft' mark - the curlews can then probe for earthworms and Long Run may find the ground to his liking in Friday's Gold Cup. Although the weather forecast looks like we will have weather suitable for quaffing champagne in picnics in the car park this week (but then - what weather isn't suitable for that?) and the Cheltenham course dries out pretty quickly these days, so I'd expect the going to be on the good side.
But all that is irrelevant for Binocular who has been withdrawn from today's big race because there are still traces of a medicine in the gelding's blood that would cause him to fail the post-race drugs test if he did win. Maybe those curlews' early arrival wasn't a good omen.
Any tips?