Supreme Novices' Hurdle Antepost Tips: Firefox can handle the heat

There is less than a month to go until the greatest show on turf, the Cheltenham Festival, dominates the sporting world for four days as the best equine athletes around collide. The whole brilliant Festival begins on Tuesday March 12th with the Supreme Novices' Hurdle, and with the market obsessed with the potential participation of Ballyburn, Billy Grimshaw thinks there is an obvious value play into the race...
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There are plenty of things that bamboozle me, and one of the many is the 2024 Supreme Novices' Hurdle market. There are as many firms going NRNB as there are betting sites offering antepost odds still for the Festival, but there is consensus surrounding the horse who heads the markets and that is Ballyburn. This was described as the best bumper horse at Closutton last season and he did nothing wrong in a couple of easy successes. On hurdles debut he was beaten - more on that later - but since then he has regained the winning thread and is now the short priced favourite for both this race and the Baring Bingham with a run following his dominant Dublin Racing Festival win over 2 miles.
I will clarify that I think in whichever race Ballyburn does run in, he deserves to be favourite and will probably win. Willie Mullins has used the Dublin Racing Festival two mile race as a prep for his number one hope for the Supreme and the then Ballymore in the past, so that doesn't really help us in guessing where Ballyburn will go. His phenomenal win over two miles may lead the master of Closutton to stick at the minimum trip, but on breeding Ballyburn will make up into a fine middle distance or even staying type in time.
In the Baring Bingham antepost market the horse he easily defeated at Leopardstown Slade Steel is now the second favourite, and he will have an outstanding chance in my eyes, but the only horse that has lowered Ballyburn's colours thus far in his career is all set to run in the Supreme and looks way overpriced to me. FIREFOX will headline Gordon Elliott's team and I do believe he has a real shot at ripping up the script in the Festival curtain raiser.
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The reason Firefox is not favourite here, or much closer to Ballyburn in the odds grids at least, is his flop when fourth as favourite in the Lawlor's Of Naas in mid January. Gordon Elliott's stable was not at the peak of his powers at this point, but the main thing that seemed to scupper Firefox was the ground and extra distance. Elliott seems to have settled on the idea that this is an out and out two miler - a sentiment I agree with - and his sole Cheltenham entry, unlike a host of Mullins runners who could go anywhere, is in this two mile race.
Jeriko Du Reponet and Mystical Power both look set to run here in the green and gold, but particularly in the former's case they do not have the form that matches up with Firefox on his defeat of Ballyburn. It is clear now that Ballyburn was not cherry ripe in that maiden hurdle, however Firefox won fair and square on the day and he does not deserve to be ten times the price of the hot pot here. I rate him one of the best each-way bets of the Festival at this stage, and would put no one off backing him win-only at this time.
Obviously there are a fair few moving balls in play, but should Ballyburn be re-routed to the Baring Bingham (I'd say it looks 60/40 in favour of the Supreme right now) then the prices of all the other runners here will tumble. Come race time, the more people that take a deep dive into the form Firefox is bringing here that ties in with Ballyburn, the more his price will contract. There are odds of 8/1 available right now for Firefox to win the Supreme and at this stage, they look far too big. If Ballyburn goes Baring Bingham, he will be half that price at a minimum and even if Ballyburn does run here i'd be surprised to see Firefox bigger than 6/1 on the day.