The venerable Timeform organisation used a well-chosen four-letter word to describe Constitution Hill’s performance in the Boodles Champion Hurdle at Punchestown in early May, when the top-rated hurdler of recent decades started as the odds-on favourite but finished fifth of the six runners. It was, the firm’s post-race analysis said, a “disconcertingly tame display”.
Tame. Ouch. It is not a word that could ever have been applied to the first dozen races of Constitution Hill’s career, which ranged from the electrifying, effortless brilliance of his first two seasons to the high drama of falls at Cheltenham and Aintree this year.
