Aintree Hurdle Tips: Constitution Hill To Bounce Back

Two horses who had very different Cheltenham Festivals in Lossiemouth and Constitution Hill renew hostilities at Aintree on Day One in the feature race, the Aintree Hurdle. Billy Grimshaw has once again nailed his colours to the mast and makes the case below...

Back in December I was giddy with excitement to see Lossiemouth and CONSTITUTION HILL clash at Kempton in the Christmas Hurdle, and made no bones about my steadfast support for Nicky Henderson's returning king. It was a match I was not sure we would see again given my confidence in a decisive home team win, but I could not have envisaged the way in which the rematch in Liverpool has come to pass.

In the end I was on the right side of that debate in terms of finding the winner, but for all the reasons that there were many willing to take on the best hurdler we've seen in the winter, there are now new and fresh sticks to beat him with in the spring. Last time he had to prove he still had it, after multiple health issues and a year off, while she was heading across the Irish Sea as the form horse having laughed at Teahupoo in the Hattons Grace. This time, he is coming in off the back of a fall that had - some say - been coming for sometime given his kamikaze technique at his obstacles and also is here as a fragile horse off less than a month's break.

Lossiemouth was dismissed at Kempton, that's true, but since that day she has bounced back to waltz away with a second Mares' Hurdle - I won't get into the debate which surrounded her defection from the Champion Hurdle to that lesser contest at the Festival - in what was arguably a career best. Clearly, this mare is made for the intermediate trip while Constitution Hill's least impressive win ever arguably came in this race in 2023 when running on fumes toward the end but still having built up a good enough lead to claim another win.

Were Lossiemouth to have run in the Champion Hurdle I'd have been dead set against her after Kempton, with my opinion being there's just no way she beats Constitution Hill even at her favourite track over two miles. This race over 2m4f certainly makes her a more tantalising proposition, but for all there are doubts about Constitution Hill I am not willing to simply give up on a horse who has put in a few of the best performances I've ever seen - and, pertinently, was travelling like a demon in the Champion before falling. Of course that race will live long in the memory for the shocks all over the shop, but it's hard to say with confidence Henderson's generational talent wouldn't have won if remaining upright.

He is not as good at Aintree as he is at Cheltenham, but neither is the mare, and he is certainly not as good over this trip as he is over the minimum, but he is still a supreme racehorse and for all Lossiemouth is a worthy rival, should Constitution Hill's jumping stand up to the test this time I do not see anything finishing in front of him. Hopefully both horses travel powerfully into the race and we see a pace battle at the flat track of Aintree because that'd be a wonderful spectacle, but I only see one winner and that is the favourite.

These are two of the best hurdlers we've seen in a long, long time but it's not a two horse race as Wodhooh for Gordon Elliott is a winning machine and still improving. Her Martin Pipe win was probably the best we've seen from her yet and she won't go down without a fight here, probably off the front end, however I do think she should set the race up perfectly for the big two to have their second ding dong battle. Hopefully the result will be the same as it was at Kempton!