Triumph Hurdle Betting: Brampour price is 'madness'

Promising horse though he is, Brampour is a ludicrous price for Triumph Hurdle and the man saying that is none other than master trainer Paul Nicholls

Brampour makes his hurdling debut in the opener at Kempton on Saturday but I can sum up in one word the fact that he goes into the race as the current favourite for the Triumph Hurdle - madness.

Don't get me wrong.

I like him a lot and he has the best form of all my recruits from the Flat this season. He is not very big but he is hard and tough and a real hurdling sort, with plenty of speed. In short, very promising, and readers of this column will have seen a video of him schooling earlier in the week. He clearly goes well.

But for bookmakers to have him as short as 10-1 favourite for the Triumph - he is only [13.0] on Betfair as well - is a touch ludicrous. But I possibly can blame myself a bit here for the hype and gossip surrounding the horse.

As everyone knows, I very rarely bet but, for the reasons above, I did have a speculative £250 each way at 33-1 on him for the Triumph Hurdle a while back. This is the first time I have revealed that publicly, but it could be that bet has filtered down the bookmaking food chain and influenced the price.

And I did joke to the press after Sam Winner won at Cheltenham, that I may have one better at home!

But that was clearly tongue in cheek, and the fact is that I have five or six juveniles still to race that could be anything. So if people put two and two together and came up with Brampour on the back of my throwaway Cheltenham comment, then they were mistaken.

Forget the hype though; here is the truth about Brampour.

Brampour has the best Flat form of my Flat recruits. He won over 1m3f at Chantilly for the Aga Khan and was only beaten in a photo in a 1m7f listed race at Deauville in August, so he clearly has a decent engine.

He is not my usual type of horse in that he is barely 16 hands. Sam Winner is a strapping 3m chaser in the making but Brampour was bought to be a hurdler. And, as you would expect of a Flat horse working over 5f, he shows more pace than Sam Winner at home.

But he took some time to warm to his hurdles. We gelded him when he arrived here, and some horses take a while to get over that. And when they do, they tend to be very tight behind, so getting them to jump fast and fluently can take time. And it did with Brampour.

He has done an awful lot of jumping now though. He started off jumping poles but now loves schooling over all sorts of obstacles, as you can see in the video. I like him a lot.

But, as I always say, you have to see these Flat horses do it on the track.

I have been hoodwinked far too often to be overconfident going into a race with a hurdling debutant who shows me so much at home.

I remember Nicky's According being Triumph favourite this time last year, before he was tailed off at Sandown on his debut.

And, in fact, I learned another harsh lesson in this very race last season.

We bought a horse called Watergate out of Sir Mark Prescott's yard, a decent 1m/1m2f performer on the Flat. He went really well at home and went off the 13-8 favourite in this race. He only finished fourth, didn't win for us, and now can't win a novice chase off 90. Horses can make fools of you, and frequently do.

So while Brampour excites me at home, so do four or five other juveniles yet to have raced. The likes of Plenty Pocket, Polisky and Zarkandar, and horses with French hurdling form such as Cedre Bleu and Indian Daudaie, are all very promising individuals. Plenty Pocket, for example, may be out at Newbury next Wednesday, Taunton on Thursday or Ascot on Saturday, and he goes nicely with Brampour at home.

It would clearly be wrong for me to appear too negative on Brampour. On what he has shown me at home, I am hopeful that he will go very close to winning today.

Let's just hope he isn't 100-1 for the Triumph after the race, as Watergate was!

Paul Nicholls / 14 Jan 2011