Cheltenham: World Hurdle

The Cheltenham Festival goes into its third day with the World Hurdle over 3 miles at 16.20 CET the main feature. Big Bucks (Paul Nicholls/ Ruby Walsh) has won this for the past 3 years - he is in fact unbeaten in 15 races since November 2008- and is odds-on to score again. However he never wins in spectacular style, which continues to give the others hope that he can be beaten, so that 11 rivals will turn up today to try and wrest the crown from him. Oscar Whisky (Nicky Henderson/ Barry Geraghty) is clearly the best of them and his stable could not be in better form (4 winners here yesterday!);he has won 10 of his 13 starts, 3 of them here, and was third in last year´s Chmpion Hurdle. The problem here is that he has never run over the distance, whereas Big Bucks stays on forever.

Willie Mullins and four challengers into the fray, including Mourad (Katie Walsh), who was third last year (with Cross Kennon fourth), but there seems no reason why that form should not hold up. His best hope is probably Thousand Stars (Paul Townend) who won the French equivalent last year. Of the others Dynaste (David Pipe/ Tom Scudamore), who chased home Big Bucks over this CD in January, could well be placed again, but logically there is no reason to oppose Big Bucks.