Over to you Faugheen! Clash in the Cotswolds is creeping ever closer

We'll see your Duel on the Downs and raise you the Clash in the Cotswolds.

Goodwood love nothing better than marketing a match and in 2011 the bout between Frankel and Canford Cliffs attracted audiences from all over the world. But Cheltenham can surely start selling the 2018 Champion Hurdle now because Buveur D'Air v Faugheen has already got us throwing out the tub of vaseline. We cannot stop licking our lips.

Like it or lump it, the Champion Hurdle is a two-horse race. Six of the ten runners in last season's race started 10-1 or shorter. It is 16-1 bar the top two with Betfair and BoyleSports for the 2018 edition. Say a prayer for our own Tom Segal when he tries to sneak some value in his ante-post tipping column next month. There isn't any.

Faugheen gets first run

It was Faugheen who first put down a marker this term. He returned from 665 days off at Punchestown in mid-November and thrashed Jezki by 16 lengths. A fortnight later Buveur D'Air left his Fighting Fifth rivals battered and bruised on the ropes at Newcastle. He then scooted by The New One and to the top of the Champion Hurdle market at Kempton on Tuesday. Over to you, Faugheen.

They never come back, but maybe some do. Maybe Faugheen is the same Faugheen we saw in the 2015 Champion Hurdle. Maybe he is the same Faugheen who posted an RPR of 177 in the Irish Champion Hurdle in January of 2016. Maybe, just maybe, he is as good as he ever was.

This will tell us more. Not a lot more, but a bit. Faugheen only faces four in the Ryanair Hurdle and the ratings and betting suggest he could stop for a quick pint in a pub at Foxrock along the way and still return in time to pick up the winner's cheque for €59,000.

The closest to him in the betting is stablemate Cilaos Emery, but he is only rated 153, 19lb inferior to Faugheen. Campeador needed to squint hard to see the Mullins superstar when he came down at the last in the Morgiana so far back was he. Mick Jazz won't be hitting the right notes at this level and The Game Changer won't be changing any games either.

This is not about betting or being right or wrong. It is about getting another glimpse of Faugheen and making sure the machine is still working. Not all the buttons will need to be pressed in this race, but the wiring needs to stay in place. If it does then another important step up the ladder to Cheltenham will have been completed.

Marvellous Monalee

Monalee's voyage back to Cheltenham has been pretty plain-sailing so far. Last season's Albert Bartlett runner-up always looked like a chaser and his dazzling debut over fences at Punchestown confirmed the suspicion that he could be Ireland's leading RSA Chase hope.

Victory in the Neville Hotels Novice Chase would surely see the 6-1 currently available about him winning the RSA dry up rapidly.

Five of his eight rivals won last time out and Gordon Elliott throws three darts at the board, two of them mares – Shattered Love and Dinaria Des Obeaux. It will take a bit of winning.

Time for a Dance

Thirty-five minutes before that, festival heroine Let's Dance will bid to get her season back on track. She had Ruby Walsh smiling when landing the Dawn Run Mares Novices' Hurdle at Cheltenham last March, but she reduced him to tears at Punchestown last month when leaving him with a broken leg when coming down four from home.

Walsh has been on the sidelines ever since but assures us he will be back for Cheltenham. How could he possibly be watching from the stands if Faugheen is trading blows with Buveur D'Air on the second Tuesday in March?

Funny, though, that is where every racing fan will want to be if those two do meet in the 2018 Champion Hurdle. There will barely be room to take hands out of pockets.

Nicky Henderson started the sales pitch at Kempton on Tuesday, proclaiming: "It would be one of the greats. It will be bigger than the Rumble In The Jungle."

The Clash in the Cotswolds is on course. Now it is over to you Faugheen to show us your are still as fabulous as ever.

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