Racing news and tips: Altior is diamond in Henderson’s Cheltenham pack

“The best way to take the pressure off is to put it on someone else,” Nicky Henderson said in Lambourn on Wednesday morning, having spent two minutes doing just that. “Willie Mullins is going to come over here with boxloads, lorryloads of ammunition for Cheltenham, and Gordon Elliott,” the trainer said. “They’re going to have a mighty team, and so is Paul Nicholls, and so is everybody. They will be very hard to beat, they always are.”

All very true, but the difference for Henderson this year is that for the first time since his seven-winner stroll through the 2012 Festival, he has strong favourites to go with his worthy contenders. Next month’s opening afternoon in particular, which has been monopolised by Mullins in recent seasons, could belong to Henderson, who is due to saddle Altior, a 1-3 chance, in the Arkle Trophy, and a three-strong team headed by Buveur D’Air, the favourite, in the Champion Hurdle.

Most of Henderson’s major hopes for the Festival were paraded for the media on Wednesday morning, but Altior, who has a white diamond positioned so precisely on his forehead that it might have been painted on, was inevitably the centre of attention.

Along with the exceptional Sprinter Sacre, who has since retired, Altior was one of Henderson’s two winners at last year’s Festival, where he took the opening Supreme Novice Hurdle. A season later, he is seen as a potential successor to Sprinter Sacre, one of the finest two-milers of all time.

“It’s an extraordinary game, isn’t it?” Henderson said, when asked about the immediate appearance of another brilliant two-miler in his stable. “We’re a long way from another Sprinter Sacre, but he’s creeping up the road. We took the same route as Sprinter did [going to the Game Spirit Chase at Newbury this month] and now he’s got to come out and do the same thing in the Arkle.

“If it happens there’s bound to be comparisons, there are now, but you can’t believe that you can put away one that was as great as that and replace him with another serious two-mile horse.

“Altior was an absolute banker in our opinion last year, but this is a novice chaser around Cheltenham and he’s still got to go out and do it. He’s serious. He can cruise along at any pace you like and then just change gear.”

Altior is one of only two odds-on chances in the ante-post Festival betting, but Henderson also has a long list of very credible candidates to back him up, unlike Nicholls, Britain’s champion trainer in 10 of the last 11 seasons, who currently has just one contender for a major Festival race at a single-figure price.

In addition to Altior, Henderson’s team of novice chasers includes Top Notch, a 5-1 chance for the JLT Novice Chase, and Might Bite, the 7-2 favourite for the RSA Chase, and while Buveur D’Air, who started the season novice chasing, is 100-30 favourite for the Champion Hurdle after a recent impressive success at Sandown, Henderson often seems just as keen to discuss the 8-1 fourth-favourite, Brain Power.

“Brain Power has done everything right and looks really well,” he said. “He has grown up mentally and travelled well through those big handicaps [at Sandown and Ascot in December], and you have got to be able to do that as they don’t hang around.

“At [a rating of] 163, he has nowhere else to go. It’s a big step up, but he goes well fresh and will probably go to Kempton for a racecourse gallop on Tuesday or Saturday.”

Charli Parcs, who holds an entry in both the Supreme Novice Hurdle and the Triumph Hurdle, is another significant Cheltenham contender from the stable, while Henderson was also happy to talk up the chance of Daphne Du Clos, who will be a rare runner for the yard in the Champion Bumper.

“We might even hit the Bumper this year, which is very strange for me,” Henderson said. “She is so tough and forward and mature, and she’s a four-year-old filly, which the history books say isn’t possible, but it looks open this year. She looked very good the other day [at Newbury] and she gets all the allowances. I think she’s got 10st 4lb.”

Buveur D’Air rose to the top of the Champion Hurdle betting after Mullins’s Faugheen and Annie Power, the last two winners of the race, were ruled out by injury. Mullins has suffered a series of setbacks in the run-up to this year’s Festival, but Limini, one of his winners at Cheltenham last season, seems sure to be a big player againafter returning to action with a convincing success at Punchestown on Monday.

Apple’s Jade, who was trained by Mullins until the owner Michael O’Leary removed 60 horses from the stable last autumn in a dispute over training fees, was odds-on for the Listed Quevega Mares’ Hurdle, but Limini quickened past her on the run-in to win by two lengths.

Limini is a possible contender for the Mares’ Hurdle, for which she is now the 2-1 favourite ahead of her stable companion Vroum Vroum Mag, who also holds entries in five other Festival races including the Champion Hurdle, at 9-4.

Thursday’s tips

Huntingdon 1.30 Arden Denis 2.00 Crievehill (nb) 2.35 Listen To The Man 3.10 Desert Queen (nap) 3.45 Lemon’s Gent 4.20 First Du Charmil 4.55 Boagrius

Sedgefield 2.10 Dark And Dangerous 2.45 On The Road 3.20 Mr Clarkson 3.55 Bandol 4.30 Kauto Riko 5.05 Banny’s Lad

Chelmsford City 1.50 Topsoil 2.20 Toy Theatre 2.55 Byres Road 3.30 Cappananty Con 4.05 Basheer 4.40 Loumarin 5.15 Jazri

Wolverhampton 5.50 Hot Lick 6.25 Chippenham 7.00 Dose 7.30 Modernism 8.00 Amazement 8.30 Compton River