Black Jack Ketchum was hailed with almost as much hype as Kauto Star now receives after he won the Grade 2 Novices Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival in 2006 by an impressive nine lengths and then followed up with Grade 1 Sefton Novices Hurdle at Aintree with another easy win, this time by five lengths. Both races were won on the bridle with Tony McCoy seemingly literally laughing at his fellow jockeys as he cruised past them.

Since then he has failed to live up to expectations so what has gone wrong?

In those races he beat some decent horses such as Neptune Collognes who has won the Punchestown Gold Cup since. This would suggest he wasn’t just looking good beating poor horses . So what has the problem been then? One theory which I believe is he is not really a strong stayer at all. his speed was what enabled him to travel so strongly and as a novice stamina is not to thoroughly tested. This would explain why decent stayer Neptune Collognes was beaten.

Since his Aintree win, which was his  seventh win in as many starts, he has won just two of his subsequent seven races. The most promising run was possibly his second (admittedly by 13 lengths) to Mighty Man last season. He travelled very well but found very little under pressure, again suggesting stamina is not his strong point.

His latest start in January this year saw him pulled up towards the end of the race after a complete no show. He may also have some problems that haven’t seen the light of day but as far as his career is concerned I would love to see him contest the Champion Hurdle on good ground this year. It looks an open race and a strong pace over that trip may just bring out the best in him.

How do you think Black Jack Ketchum should be campaigned? Have we seen the best of him? Let us know your thoughts.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 10th, 2008 at 5:53 pm and is filed under Cheltenham Festival. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.