D’AIR RAID
Champion Hurdler Buveur to retain his crown for Henderson
BUVEUR D’AIR can leave the bookies gasping in the Champion Hurdle (3.30, ITV) as Cheltenham 2018 roars into action today.
JP McManus’s seven-year-old was a stunning winner of the race in 2017 – and none of his rivals has laid a glove on Buveur D’Air in three outings this winter.
Barry Geraghty’s mount rates a rock-solid favourite to give Nicky Henderson a record seventh Champion Hurdle triumph – but eachway players should have an interest in Elgin (right).
Alan King added the Elite Racing Club’s six-year-old to the Champion Hurdle field last Wednesday at a cost of £20,000.
Elgin has a few pounds to find but he’s scored three times this term and is one of the few still on the up in the field.
Five lengths too good for three-time Champion Hurdle My Tent Or runner-up Yours
at Aintree in April, Barry Geraghty’s mount is three from three this season – and how.
Buveur D’Air sauntered to success in the Grade 1 Fighting Fifth Hurdle at Newcastle in December, brushing The New One aside for the top-level Christmas Hurdle at Kempton 24 days later.
The incumbent warmed up for today with another facile score at Sandown last month and it will be a turn-up if Buveur D’Air fails to justify favouritism.
As regards his opponents, 2015 Champion Faugheen Hurdler looks to be on the wane, while his Willie Mullins stablemates Yorkhill Melon
and also have points to prove. Of more interest is Elgin,
supplemented at a cost of £20,000. BUVEUR D’AIR towers head and shoulders above the 12 opponents who stand between him a successful title defence.
There was an element of kismet about his victory in last year’s Champion Hurdle – trainer Nicky Henderson, unconvinced by his jumping technique in novice chases, elected to return Buveur D’Air to the smaller obstacles.
The revised plan resulted in a four-and-a-half-length supremacy – Henderson’s sixth – and each of four runs since has seen the seven-year-old tighten his grip on the trophy.