Can Champion Hurdlers Jump Fences?

Rock On Ruby Takes A New Challenge

Harry Fry has rightly decided that staying over hurdles any longer with Rock On Ruby is probably a futile exercise given the way his charge was so easily dismissed by The New One at Kempton on his seasonal reappearance.
Fry was very candid after Kempton stating that his horse has a persistent problem with his breathing and that may stop him from maintaining the level of form he had been showing over hurdles up to this season.
Rated 170 at his best, Rock On Ruby must be one of the highest rated hurdlers to go chasing in a long time and at rising nine years of age he still has enough time to make up into a top class chaser. However it could well be that the horse's wind problems could stop him reaching his full potential over fences and he makes very little appeal for a race like the Arkle.

Champion Hurdlers Can't Jump Fences?

Rock On Ruby is part of a very small band of recent Champion Hurdlers who have tried their luck over fences. Remarkably since 1990 there have only been four Champion Hurdle victors who have gone on to race in steeplechases:

What About Dawn Run?

Prior to 1990 horses such as Bula, Beech Road and Celtic Shot managed varying degrees of success over fences but Night Nurse and Dawn Run hold the claims for the most successful Champion Hurdlers turned chasers.
Peter Easterby's Night Nurse still retains the highest ever rating by Timeform for a hurdler (182) but also managed to finish second in a Gold Cup.
Dawn Run went one better, winning the Champion Hurdle in 1984 and the Gold Cup in 1986, a feat that has yet to be matched.
Night Nurse and Dawn Run demonstrate that Champion Hurdlers CAN also be top class chasers so why don't more hit the chasing heights? In recent years this could be due to the number of ex-flat horses that have won the Champion Hurdle.
Whilst ex-flat racers may have the required speed to win a Champion Hurdle it seems that most trainers believe that they lack the scope to jump fences to a similarly high standard.
Consequently the likes of Sublimity, Katchit and Binocular didn't try jumping fences and remained over hurdles until the end of their career.
Alternatively some ex-flat race hurdlers (Istabraq and Hurricane Fly for example) retained such a high level of hurdling form that their trainers didn't feel the need to try their stars out on the larger obstacles.
Similarly there have been some NH bred Champion Hurdlers in the last few years (Brave Inca, Hardy Eustace, Rooster Booster) who may have fared well had they been asked to jump a fence but their connections chose to stick to hurdles. Presumably this was partly because after a number of seasons of being trained to jump hurdles low and fast, switching to the different discipline of jumping fences could potentially cause problems as the horse is so used to the smaller obstacles?

Flat Speed Is Now The Key

Perhaps this highlights that we should view the Champion Hurdle as a discipline that will only truly suit a very small number of horses.
Those that excel in the Champion Hurdle are highly unlikely to make up into Champion Chase or Gold Cup horses as the disciplines required for those races are very different. This thinking is underlined further by looking at a few of the recent Champion Hurdle runner-ups who have tried and failed to build a steeplechasing career:

• Peddlers Cross
• Khyber Kim
• Celestial Halo
• Harchibald
• Westender

Could we take this argument one step further and suggest that the requirements for a Champion Hurdler may be closer to flat racing traits rather than traditional National Hunt characteristics? For example:

Is It A Negative To Have Run In Bumpers?

This suggestion could cast a negative slant against the chances of the likes of My Tent Or Yours, The New One, Jezki and Annie Power for the 2014 Champion Hurdle as all of these have graduated from Bumpers.
Conversely it could be seen as a positive to the chances of current Champion Hurricane Fly and last year's Triumph Hurdle winner Our Conor.

Our Conor For 2014 Champion Hurdle

If Our Conor takes up his entry over the Christmas period and confirms his wellbeing in that race then he is likely to be the horse that fits most of the criteria required to become Champion Hurdler for 2014.