MUCH OF THE talk after Envoi Allen’s win in the Grade 1 Lawlor’s of Naas Novice Hurdle at Naas on Sunday centred around whether or not he would be targeted at the Champion Hurdle this year. Gordon Elliott said that he would be given a Champion Hurdle entry, but the trainer seemed to be leaning towards staying on the novice path.

It’s a nice decision to have land in your lap, but it’s still a decision that has to be made.

You can make the case for running Envoi Allen in the Champion Hurdle. He could be good enough to be a Champion Hurdle horse this year. He has never been beaten, so we still don’t know how good he is or how good he can be. He has now raced eight times, and he has won eight times.

He didn’t pull clear of his rivals at Naas on Sunday but, taking on high-class novices, he left the impression that he had more left if more had been required. He jumped to the front over the second last flight, and it never really looked like Elixir D’ainay was going to get back at him.

That appears to be Envoi Allen’s style though. We are still learning about him, but it looks like he tends not to do much more than he needs to do. When he won the Grade 2 bumper at the Dublin Racing Festival at Leoapardstown last February, he won by just over a length. When he won the Champion Bumper at Cheltenham in March, he won by three parts of a length. When he won the Royal Bond Hurdle at Fairyhouse in December, he won by a length and a half. We don’t know for sure that he could have found more on any or all of those occasions, but the suspicion is that he could.

Sea The Stars won everything — the Guineas, the Derby, the Eclipse, the Arc — but he never won by more than two and a half lengths.

The Champion Hurdle picture changed again at the Christmas festivals. Klassical Dream was beaten again, Sharjah won, Epatante won again. JP McManus’ mare heads the ante post betting now, followed by Saldier and Pentland Hills.

Saldier was impressive in winning the Morgiana Hurdle, but a slight setback ruled him out of the Christmas festivals. Hopefully he will be back in action again soon.

Pentland Hills shaped well in defeat in the International Hurdle at Cheltenham in mid-December, but he is a just-turned-five-year-old, and we know that, Espoir D’Allen’s victory last year notwithstanding, the record of five-year-olds in the Champion Hurdle is not good.

Espoir D’Allen was the first five-year-old to win the Champion Hurdle since Katchit in 2008, and he was only the second five-year-old to win the race since See You Then won his first in 1985. That’s 35 years ago. And See You Then was so good, he won two more.

Go back even further. The two five-year-old winners of the Champion Hurdle before See You Then were Night Nurse and Persian War. They were both iconic Champion Hurdle winners, and they were both so good that they both won it the following year too as six-year-olds, with Persian War winning it again as a seven-year-old. It usually takes a special five-year-old to win the Champion Hurdle.

The six-year-old Envoi Allen wouldn’t be out of place in the line-up for this year’s Champion Hurdle. On the contrary, he would be a fascinating inclusion. Even so, it would be a big ask.

The case against running Envoi Allen in the Champion Hurdle this year is easily made. Primarily, he is a novice, and a significant opportunity cost would go with a Champion Hurdle tilt. He can race against fellow novices this year. If he remains over hurdles next season, he will have to race in open company. It is not easy to win the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle or the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham, but it is easier to win one of the novice hurdles than it is to win the Champion Hurdle. It’s like going for a goal when you obviously have a better chance of kicking a point.

If your goal is to win a race at the Cheltenham Festival, then it makes sense that you compete in the race in which you have the best chance of succeeding. If you are a novice, you race in one of the races that is restricted to novices. Pick the fruit that you think you can reach. All going well, Envoi Allen can run in the Champion Hurdle next year. He can’t run in the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle next year.

The Cheveley Park Stud horse is still very inexperienced for a Champion Hurdle. He has raced just three times now over hurdles. Even if he runs at the Dublin Racing Festival at Leopardstown in three and a half weeks, even if he goes and wins the Chanelle Pharma Novice Hurdle there, he will have run just four times over hurdles before Cheltenham. He would be a very inexperienced Champion Hurdle contender. He would be taking on more experienced rivals, more hardened campaigners, slicker hurdlers.

And if he did run well in the Champion Hurdle without winning, if he were to run out of his skin and finish second or third, wouldn’t you think that he could have won the Supreme or the Ballymore?

Bookmakers go generally 11/8 and 6/4 about Envoi Allen for the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle, with one firm betting 5/1 ‘with a run’ in the Champion Hurdle, and that seems to be a fair reflection of his relative prospects in the respective races.

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