Alderbrook's claims are put on trial

The form of a Champion Hurdle hope is under scrutiny. Greg Wood reports

As the nation cast off its woollies and stepped out into spring sunshine yesterday, it was not difficult to pick out the punters among the pedestrians. They were the ones with complexions as white as the occasional clouds which a stiff drying breeze was blowing across a deep blue sky. They were the ones with ante-post Festival bets on heavy-ground horses.

The going at Cheltenham has been bottomless since the end of January. Runners at next week's meeting with a definite preference for testing conditions, such as Master Oats in the Gold Cup and Danoli in the Champion Hurdle, were strongly supported as a result, and as late as Thursday morning most predictions were for heavy ground throughout the week.

By yesterday afternoon, however, the forecast for Tuesday's opening day had changed to soft, good to soft in places. "If it carries on like this, it could be good to soft, or even good," a spokesman for the course said.

That prospect will send backers into confusion, and bookmakers into helpless giggles. Having laid the soft-ground horses, they can now also lay those who prefer a sound surface. One way or another, they should make a killing.

In the face of such uncertainty before the best meeting of the year, it is not surprising that today's events at Sandown and Chepstow seem a little irrelevant, and what significance this afternoon's cards do hold is entirely Festival-based.

Trying Again, who will carry top weight in the Imperial Cup at Sandown, and Morstock, a runner at Chepstow, both spent an afternoon at Wincanton 17 days ago in forlorn pursuit of Alderbrook. Kim Bailey's novice is now within a couple of points of favouritism in most Champion Hurdle lists, but today's action offers the first - and only - test of his form before the championship itself.

David Gandolfo, Trying Again's trainer, was much impressed by Alderbrook's win in the Kingwell Hurdle. "He certainly beat our horse very easily," he said yesterday. "I would think that whatever beats him in the Champion will win it."

Today's race is a handicap, however, and any judgement of Trying Again's performance must account for the 11st 10lb burden on his back. He could run very well and still not beat Amigos, an excellent and improving handicapper who should remind us of one vital element that will be missing in Channel 4's Festival coverage. He runs in the colours of Peter O'Sullevan, who has called the horses at Cheltenham for as long as almost any punter can remember.

Spare a thought also for one of the bottom weights in an otherwise nondescript amateurs' hurdle at 2.55. In January 1988, Roark won the Ladbroke Hurdle. Six years later he was found, malnourished and neglected, in a field in Hampshire. Nursed back to health by Harry Willis, a former trainer, he is now stabled with Barry Stevens and will be running today for the first time in more than two years. He deserves to win by the length of the straight, but Jurz has a more realistic chance.

The list of good horses who will miss the Festival increased yesterday, when Mudahim, who would have held an excellent chance in the Stayers' Hurdle, was found to have a minor leg injury before his final preparatory gallop. "The vet said it could have happened at any time," Chris Broad, Mudahim's trainer, said. "I'm devastated because I wasn't afraid of anything."