“We’re back in the same boat,” Nicky Henderson says with a smile and a sigh as he considers the immense pressure bearing down on him while he plots the future of Constitution Hill, a seemingly miraculous horse whose next appearances on the track will transfix National Hunt racing. Constitution Hill has built a winning aura which could match and even surpass the hold that Sprinter Sacre, another of Henderson’s great horses, had on the racing public 10 years ago.
“When Sprinter was in his heyday,” Henderson continues, “there wasn’t a horse in the world who could have beaten him. Anything but sheer brilliance, anything less than a win by 20 lengths, was a catastrophe. People went to see him because he was phenomenal. With Constitution Hill, the amazing thing is that he’s only had eight races over hurdles. So it’s been lovely how quickly the racing world latched on to him.”
