This was a mighty strong trends race when professional jockeys could ride in it but it has effectively been downgraded and was restricted to conditional and amateur riders and the first running under its new guise last year saw a nine-year-old win at 66/1 having his 56th hurdle start that broke virtually every stat in the book so I fear the UK horse racing trends will not hold up as well.
Notwithstanding the trend-defying result of 2009, older horses usually played second fiddle to the youngsters with five and six-year-olds having won 16 of the last 19 renewals. On the two other occasions older horses have prevailed (Wellbeing and Docklands Limo), the ground was genuinely testing therefore putting the emphasis on stamina over speed and I am certainly of the opinion that the former tends to improve with age. Other stats Culcabock overcame were that he had won earlier in the season unlike 7 of the 13 previous winners and he ran at the Cheltenham Festival unlike 16 of the previous 18 winners. In fact, to really rub it in, he ran in the County Hurdle becoming the first horse in 48 to try since 1993 to come on and win here. I really hope last year’s result was a one-off!
One of the most compelling stats about this race is the dire record of horses carrying over 11st as they are 0-76 since 1990. However, with the race conditions changing with it being restricted to conditionals and amateur riders, I fear for that stat too though a remarkable 12 of the last 20 winners carried no higher than 10st 2lbs. Other stats to note are that no front runner has won since 1998 (and that was just a five-runner race) and the last 15 favourites have been turned over.