Constitution Hill had been the automatic Champion Hurdle favourite ever since his brilliant success in the Supreme Novice Hurdle in 2022 when he was scratched from this year’s race a week ago, and the feature event on Tuesday’s card at Cheltenham inevitably feels a little sub-par without him.
The mantle of odds-on favourite has passed, equally predictably, to Willie Mullins’s State Man, who suffered his only defeat when completing as the nine-length runner-up behind Constitution Hill 12 months ago.
