King George VI Chase meeting: horse racing updates from Kempton Park ? live
There will now be a ten- to 15-minute delay to racing at Aintree with the television cameras being redeployed due to fog
Constitution Hill returns in the Fighting Fifth Hurdle at @NewcastleRaces on Saturday! With a rating of ????????????????, only five two-mile hurdlers have been rated higher in Timeform's history. https://t.co/nuUNgq1pUv pic.twitter.com/Ug5VRJkeNx
Hello and welcome to this Boxing Day bonanza. It?s rare indeed that the King George VI Chase, one of the great jumps races on the calendar, threatens to be overshadowed but that?s the case at Kempton today with Constitution Hill making his comeback in the Christmas Hurdle against current Champion Hurdle favourite Lossiemouth. The Nicky Henderson-trained runner has had plenty of hiccups, detailed here by colleague Greg Wood , since winning the race imperiously last year but backers at least haven?t loss faith. The folks at BestofBets.com report ?he is by far the punters favourite as he?s attracted nearly 60% of all wagers? and is now favourite over his big-market rival having been odds against earlier in the week. It?s worth remembering that ratings experts Timeform put Constitution Hill in the top ten hurdlers of all-time alongside some of the greats of the 1970s and just 3lb behind the mighty Istabraq.
Good morning from Kempton, where festive racegoers are pouring through the gates ahead of what is possibly ? no, I?m going to make that probably ? the most eagerly-anticipated King George VI Chase card of the century.
The feature event is a cracker by itself, a wide-open, 11-runner contest with a decent case to be made for 10 of them and live contenders from both Ireland and France adding extra interest. And it is backed up by the long-awaited and much-anticipated reappearance of Constitution Hill, one of the all-time great hurdlers, in the Christmas Hurdle, 366 days after his romp to an easy success in the same race last year.
It will not, surely, be anything like as straightforward today, as Willie Mullins has sent the mare Lossiemouth, a dual winner at the Cheltenham festival already, to take him on in what promises to be ? with all due respect to the highly promising Burdett Road - a head-to-head for the ages.
It seemed quite possible after the final declarations earlier in the week that for the first time since his racecourse debut in December 2021, Constitution Hill would not set off as the favourite for today?s race. Punters have been making time in their busy Christmas Day schedules to back him, though, and the top two in the betting have flip-flopped, with Constitution Hill currently top-priced at even money and Lossiemouth out to 5-4.
It could all change again, of course, as the betting heats up in the 10 minutes before the off, and much the same is true of the King George. Spillane?s Tower, bidding to give owner JP McManus a first ever win in Christmas feature, is currently top-priced at 100-30 but anyone one of Banbridge (5-1), Il Est Francais (11-2) or even Grey Dawning (13-2) - because who doesn?t love a grey in the King George? - could yet make a move towards the top of the betting if they catch the punters? imagination.
L?Homme Presse, from Venetia Williams?s red-hot stable, has also been attracting money this morning although ideally he would probably like a bit more cut in the ground, which is officially good, good-to-soft in places.
You can, as always, follow all the action, reaction, market moves and more here on the blog from the first race to the last, and the action will get underway at 12.45 when a novice handicap chase will launch an ITV Racing programme that also includes a the Grade One Formby Novice Hurdle (1.05) at Aintree and the competitive Rowland Meyrick Handicap Chase at Wetherby (1.35).
