The Grade 1 Fighting Fifth Hurdle of 2025 will have a huge influence on the Champion Hurdle betting. Just five horses head to Tyneside track Newcastle up at Gosforth Park outside the city centre, but there are genuine top-level talents on show on Saturday, 29 November.
This is one of the few big races in the British Isles that Irish master trainer Willie Mullins hasn’t won, but he now unleashes unbeaten five-year-old Anzadam against his elders in elite company for the first time. Carrying colours seen on these shores aboard greats like Al Boum Photo and Shishkin, he makes his UK bow and tries a Grade 1 off just four career starts.
Anzadam faces some serious opposition in the Fighting Fifth Hurdle of 2025 too in the enigmatic Constitution Hill, Dan Skelton’s The New Lion and Jeremy Scott mare Golden Ace. The latter ran out a fortuitous winner of the Champion Hurdle in a Cheltenham result packed full of drama at the Festival. Fallers and injuries sustained in the race left Golden Ace picking up the pieces.
Unlike the others in the field, completed by the supplemented Nemean Lion for Kerry Lee, she has already run this season. All didn’t go well for Golden Ace on reappearance at Wetherby, however, as she scoped dirty. She finished tailed off in a match with Kateira and hasn’t had long to get over whatever went wrong.
🟡⚫️ Per @ToteRacing, Willie Mullins says that ANZADAM could head to Newcastle for the Grade 1 Fighting Fifth Hurdle.
👀 Could be a cracking renewal at this rate…pic.twitter.com/E3oV3TB13q
— Road To Cheltenham (@RoadCheltenham) October 8, 2025
Connections of Anzadam, who had his Cheltenham odds for the Champion Hurdle slashed when owner-stable companion State Man picked up a season-ending injury on the gallops, won’t worry too much about Golden Ace or Nemean Lion. Their official ratings in the low 150s, even factoring in a 7lb sex allowance for the mare, leave both some way short of those open to further progress.
Hard to Say Which Constitution Hill Turns up in Fighting Fifth Hurdle
While Mullins tries to break his duck, Nicky Henderson has a record nine wins in this race. Constitution Hill makes the trip up from Seven Barrows in Lambourn to Tyneside in a bid to regain the crown he took in 2022. An awful lot has happened in the intervening three years. Still rated 170 by the BHA handicapper, Constitution Hill conquered all before him that season with four Grade 1 victories.
Since the end of that campaign, however, he has only managed to win the Christmas Hurdle at Kempton twice more. Constitution Hill ploughed through the final flight on his prep run for last season’s Champion Hurdle, then Cheltenham betting sites had him their 1/2 favourite for the big one. He fell four out, then did so again at the second last in the Aintree Hurdle.
A tame fifth in the Punchestown Champion Hurdle behind State Man, Golden Ace and County Hurdle heroine Kargese simply wasn’t seen as Constitution Hill’s true running. Henderson insists the team has done extensive schooling with him at home, but the Fighting Fifth Hurdle is definitely the comeback trail. Don’t be surprised if landing a record-extending fourth Christmas Hurdle on Boxing Day is the real target.
The truth is we’ve simply no idea which version of this old Cheltenham favourite will turn up at Newcastle. If it was Constitution Hill in his prime without the battle scars of those springtime falls, then he would probably head the market. Taking those tumbles will almost certainly have banished all thoughts of a late career switch to fences. Neither Constitution Hill nor Anzadam enjoys the status of bookmaker favourites for this contest, however.
The New Lion Feared Most by Bookies for Tyneside’s Big Race
Both have questions to answer. Anzadam must prove he’s good enough for this level after a couple of easy Grade 3 victories in Ireland over last winter. Constitution Hill must demonstrate that he retains all his old ability, meanwhile, and that leaves a horse from a stable ruthlessly pursuing a maiden National Hunt Trainers Championship as the market leader.
Leading Irish owner JP McManus is no stranger to success in the Fighting Fifth Hurdle after six wins. In dual Grade 1 scorer The New Lion, he has an emerging superstar dropping back in trip following victories in the Challow and Baring Bingham on the Cheltenham Festival schedule as a novice. This six-year-old has the potential to be the best horse Dan Skelton has trained in his career so far.
Like Anzadam, The New Lion brings a perfect 4-4 record over hurdles, but it’s a higher level of form. All those successes, however, have been over almost two-and-a-half miles or further. This shorter trip poses a new question of him, but in a division without State Man many of the top races may turn into stamina tests.
Ireland’s leading Champion Hurdle contender Lossiemouth, who landed the Morgiana Hurdle in bloodless fashion on her reappearance, is also better over further. There is a tradition of top hurdling talents among past Cheltenham winners successfully dropping down in distance from the Baring Bingham. Think Istabraq, Hardy Eustace and Faugheen.
The New Lion obviously has some way to go to be worthy of those comparisons, but may well prove up to the task. Timing is everything and he’s on the up in an era when Champion Hurdle horses aren’t easy to come by. Already established as a top target trainer, The New Lion could help put Skelton on the map at the top table.
WATCH: Constitution Hill Win the Fighting Fifth Hurdle in 2022
