Triumph Hurdle Trends

The Triumph Hurdle this season looks one of the hottest renewals for a while and we have some key trends that might help you to pick your four year old in the contest.

There are three horses at the top of the market that have dominated the betting for the majority of the season with Gordon Elliott having Fil Dor and Pied Piper and Willie Mullins looking to spoil the party with Vauban

There are other horses like Porticello and Knight Salute for the British that will be looking to get involved and we are now going to go through all of the key trends.

The Triumph Hurdle features the best of the four year old juveniles and a key stat that has been common in all of the last 15 winners is they have all had less than seven career starts over hurdles.

Nearly all the runners in the field will fit this bill with many of the youngsters started their racing lives on the flat and coming over to hurdles this term.

Knight Salute is one of the most exposed horses in the field running five times over hurdles this term but he has won them all, including twice at Grade Two level.

Following with the trend that being less exposed is better for you in this contest, the last 15 winners of the race had all been involved in six or fewer runs during the season.

Again this plays to the strengths of many in the field but could hinder Knight Salute and also Fil Dor who has been seen four times this term.

A very interesting stat is that 14 of the last 15 winners were rated 139+ which again plays to the strengths of the horses at the top of the market.

The Irish are yet to get their English marks but it does not look good for the English with Porticello and Knight Salute both sat on 135.

Form heading into the festival is a huge thing for most horses but especially in this Grade One as 13 of the last 14 winners had all finished first or second in their final outing before Cheltenham.

This would see the likes of The Tide Turns and Forever William, who albeit are likely to head to the boodles, not in a good position ahead of this race.

You do not see many horses head to Cheltenham off the back of a fall or a weak performance and go and win next time out at the festival.

Huge negative.

One of the first stats that sees some horses at the top of the market out of the trends is that 13 of the last 15 winners have been either French or Irish bred horses.

Second favourite Pied Piper and Knight Salute, were both bred in Great Britain and that goes against this stat massively.

Earlier we mentioned about many of these horses running on the flat prior to coming over hurdles and 5/10 winners that had ran on the flat were rated 80+.

Pied Piper and Knight Salute top the bill for this stat being rated 90 and 91 respectively at their best on the flat.

Horses like Porticello have only been seen over hurdles and never ventured over to the flat during their careers.

Finally, quite a quirky stat to finish is that 10/15 winners had won a hurdle race at either Ascot, Cheltenham, Kempton or Leopardstown.

Cheltenham form looks the biggest which Pied Piper has but as for the other courses Vauban was a winner at Leopardstown last time out in the Grade One Spring Hurdle.

For the English contingent, Knight Salute is a winner at both Kempton and Cheltenham, whilst Doctor Parnassus is a winner at Ascot.

It is very hard to look past the favourite Vauban in this race being a French bred gelding that was a winner at Leopardstown last time out.

It is very difficult to split both him and Pied Piper but with the later having some trends go against him, you can see why the market is leaning towards the Mullins horse.