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 Champion hurdler Binocular in excellent form ahead of comeback race

Published 2010/11/24 23:37:00 - Watching

Binocular

Binocular, right, meets triple champion hurdler Istabraq ahead of his seasonal reappearance run at Newcastle on Saturday. Photograph: Martin Godwin
Just in case Nicky Henderson was not feeling sufficiently concerned about Binocular's return to action in Saturday's Fighting Fifth, the horse's owner, JP McManus, sent a little reminder yesterday about the standards to which he has been accustomed. At 5am, a horse-box rolled up to Henderson's yard and out stepped Istabraq, who carried McManus's colours to victory in three Champion Hurdles from 1998 to 2000.
"It's fun to see him," said the unfazed trainer, who had his own triple champion in See You Then more than 20 years ago. "I fear he's going to have to go back tomorrow but I'd love to keep him. I'd love to find out how good he really was."
That was a jocular dig at Aidan O'Brien, who had the high-pressure job of training Istabraq and memorably spoke of trying to keep his highly strung charge "just on the right side of toppling over on to the wrong side". Now, after a long spell in retirement at McManus's Martinstown stud in County Limerick, the horse is a content-seeming 18-year-old who showed little sign of temperament as he posed for photographers alongside Binocular.
"JP is absolutely passionate about his horses and I know Binocular means everything to him," Henderson said, adding, "you can see from the size of Istabraq, I think he gets pretty spoiled at home."
The trainer's memories of the new arrival were not entirely happy. He recalled how his hopes were raised and then dashed as Blue Royal led over the last in the Champion Hurdle of 2000 only to be swept aside on the run-in. The horse's owner, Lynn Wilson, later told Henderson it had been "one of the most memorable moments of his life" to have been in the unsaddling enclosure when the winner entered that day and was greeted by an enormous roar from the crowd.
"Binocular's got a long, long way to go before he catches up with Istabraq," the trainer mused. "But when Punjabi [also trained by Henderson] won it two years ago, Binocular was just half a length behind him and if things had gone differently that day, we could be trying for our third one rather than our second."
Saturday's race at Newcastle went poorly for Binocular last season, when he was a well-beaten fifth at odds-on, but, after a couple of recent schooling sessions, Henderson is confident that the six-year-old will do himself justice this time.
"What was missing [for most of last season] was this incredible, slick jumping. It just wasn't him. When he is jumping well, he's like Istabraq, he's like See You Then. These horses, they are champions because they have this absolute natural ability to cross a hurdle so quickly and slickly. And that's what he wasn't doing all last year."
When connections had just about given up hope of getting him right for the Champion Hurdle, Binocular spent time at Martinstown and returned a changed horse. "It was blatantly obvious that that one sparkly thing, his jumping technique, was back, and our hope was that, with that back, you've got the horse back. And so it proved. The Fighting Fifth is going to be a very good race. I've always said that Starluck's a very good horse on a flat track, Peddlers Cross obviously is a top-class horse. But I'm happier coming into it than I was last year."
However, the trainer is anxious that the race is not lost to bad weather, as the obvious alternative for Binocular's reappearance run, the International at Cheltenham next month, comes too close to his next target, the Christmas Hurdle at Kempton. Frost covers have been laid at Newcastle but the clerk of the course, James Armstrong, remains far from confident. "We're soft, heavy in places," he said. "It'll be -1C tonight and we might get a dusting of snow. On Friday, there's talk of snow and we'll just have to see how much we get. It might be as much as an inch. If we get more, that will make it very hard to take the sheets off the course."
Binocular faces a maximum of five rivals as Sublimity will not be risked on such soft ground. China Rock, also trained in Ireland, will not travel over for the Hennessy Gold Cup, having suffered a minor setback.
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