New One needs to win to ‘keep Champion dream alive’

Sam Twiston-Davies believes The New One needs to win today’s StanJames.com International Hurdle at Cheltenham today to keep his Champion Hurdle dreams firmly alive.

The six-year-old was a luckless third in last season’s two-mile blue riband, flying up the famous hill having been badly hampered by the fatal fall of Our Conor, leaving connections wondering what might have been.

He has made a fine start to the new campaign, winning a Listed prize at Kempton and a conditions event at Haydock and he will be a long odds-on favourite to clinch this weekend’s Grade Two prize for the second successive year.