Pricewise picks out two novice hurdlers to follow this season

Ted Walsh once said – and he was undoubtedly right at the time – that nobody wanted a staying hurdler. If you owned a fast jumper you would aim at the Champion Hurdle or Champion Chase, but if you had a slower one the Gold Cup was the race everyone wanted to win. Basically staying hurdlers were failed chasers.

That is not the case anymore because the Stayers’ Hurdle looks like being the race of the Cheltenham Festival and we are all scratching around trying to find a Champion Hurdle horse to take on Epatante and the Champion Chase candidates are thin on the ground too.

Similarly there seem to be loads of hugely exciting novice chasers. Envoi Allen, Shishkin and Monkfish are the pre-eminent ones currently and behind them there are loads with huge potential like Unexcepted, Janidil, Allart, Allmankind, Chatham Street Lad and Protektorat.