Cue Card excites on Hurdles Debut

It seems quite fitting that my first post concerns an emerging star amongst the National Hunt ranks. A horse that I, along with many others, have eagerly awaited the reappearance since last seen storming home up the Cheltenham hill to land the Champion Bumper at the 2010 Festival. I am of course talking about Cue Card, who made his hurdles debut at Aintree over the weekend.

The transition to hurdles isn’t always as straightforward  as it would appear and I can recall several top rated bumper winners down the years who failed to realise their potential when switched to tackle obstacles. However, Cue Card showed no signs of any such problems at Aintree where he put in a faultless round of jumping upped in distance to 2 mile 4 furlongs and running out an impressive 13 length winner of this Novice Hurdle without coming off the bridle with seemingly plenty left in the tank – suggesting that the Colin Tizzard four year old should be capable of staying further.

Bookmakers reacted quickly by trimming the odds of Cue Card in the Supreme Novices Hurdle (6/1 from 10/1) and Neptune Novices Hurdle (6/1 from 12/1), for which he was already favourite in both for the 2011 Cheltenham Festival but an antepost bet at this stage is restricted by his versatility in trip. The Supreme Novices is over two miles whilst the Neptune is 2m 5f and judging by his effort at Aintree I would tend to think he will relish every yard of the longer trip but it may be worthwhile holding out to see how he performs next time out.

It’s still very early in the season and whilst it’s difficult not to get excited by what appears to be such a talented prospect in Cue Card, a lot can change between now and March. Plenty of punters got there fingers burnt with a similar vein of optimism surrounding Dunguib, winner of the previous year’s Champion Bumper and emphatic winner when switch to hurdles in the build up to last season’s festival only to be beaten when odds on in the Supreme.

However, the 2010 Champion Bumper form has worked out really well for Cue Card with 5th, 6th and 7th in the race, Megastar, Dare Me and Bishopsfurze all winning since and should the highly rated Paul Nicholls trained Al Ferof, second at Cheltenham, justify his promise when making his much anticipated debut over hurdles then Cue Card really could look the real deal, although quotes of 33/1 to for the Champion Hurdle do appear a little premature for 2011.