The three-mile hurdling division was like a series of championship boxing bouts in 2010/11. The champion, weighing in at two Long Walk wins, two World Hurdle wins and two Liverpool Hurdle wins, Big Buck's; the challenger, undefeated in two starts at 3m and unbeaten in the current season, Grands Crus. The showdown, in the World Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival, was as eagerly awaited as David Haye versus Wladimir Klitschko, only without the anti-climax, with the champion winning decisively; the rematch, at Aintree in the Liverpool Hurdle, saw a more comprehensive victory for the best staying hurdler since Inglis Drever.

Should Grands Crus, who rounded off his season with a disappointing effort in the Grand Course de Haies d'Auteuil, continue in Graded staying hurdles rather than going chasing, he'd win his share, but not if going against Big Buck's. However, two new and credible challengers start 2011/12 with realistic aspirations of preventing Paul Nicholls's star hurdler from getting his fourth victory in both the Cheltenham and Aintree contests.

Arguably the best of those took the Auteuil feature, Thousand Stars from the Willie Mullins yard. I've written before when previewing races he's been in that he can take anything, and if you consider his hard races in the Champion Hurdle, the Aintree Hurdle when second to Oscar Whisky and fruitless pursuits of Hurricane Fly, culminating in a fine runner-up finish to him at the Punchestown Festival, there you have the proof. No horse deserved a Grade 1 win more last season.

And he got it in France. Thousand Stars isn't bred for stamina, but had shaped like a stayer on more than one occasion - doing so again when staying on under strong pressure from Katie Walsh at Aintree, where he'd have won if the race had been over two miles five and a half furlongs, like it was in the 70s - and the 3m1f110y of the Grande Course was likely to suit his run style. Nothing was going better approaching the last, and he ran on well when Ruby Walsh asked him to go and win the race. Reliable 'bridesmaid' horse Mourad, third at Cheltenham then second to Quevega in the World Series Hurdle at Punchestown, was fourth at Auteuil - giving his best yet again - and Thousand Stars, rated 160 with me, is only six lengths inferior to Big Buck's (166) in terms of form.

The second main threat to Big Buck's looks to be Bobs Worth, along with Spirit Son one of the top two 2m4f novice hurdlers last term. This was before a surprise switch from the Neptune over 2m5f to the longer Albert Bartlett Hurdle at Cheltenham. In his absence the Neptune was a mess, with the first six home finishing within ten lengths of each other, while Bobs Worth took the Albert Bartlett decisively from stable companion Mossley.

Three queries over Bobs Worth at this stage. Firstly, his form as it stands at the moment gives him between 25 and 30 lengths to find on Big Buck's. Secondly, as he's proved his versatility with hurdles wins over all three trips, there's the question of what trip will he actually run over come Cheltenham. His jumping will also come under scrutiny at the start of the campaign, as I thought that his Albert Bartlett win included the worst round of hurdling that he's done to date - in close at some and one bad mistake.

Quevega will once again be the subject of debate as to whether or not she should step out of mares company at the Cheltenham Festival, and pass up a crack at a fourth David Nicholson Mares' Hurdle (the last two on her reappearance) for a go at the Champion or World Hurdles. If she did run in something else in March, her target would likely be the World Hurdle, as she's won the last two runnings of Punchestown's equivalent, called the World Series Hurdle. However a rating with me of 149 after Punchestown - using, you guessed it, Mourad as the yardstick - gives her over a stone to find.

The Sefton Novices' Hurdle winner from Aintree Saint Are looks one for the Welsh National with the mud flying more than he does a World Hurdle winner and of more interest is another mare, Askanna, who achieved the same level of form as Quevega when she won a Grade 2 3m novice hurdle at Punchestown from two good yardsticks, Mossey Joe and David Pipe's useful handicapper Battle Group. If Quevega is to stick to the mares' event at Cheltenham, it would be nice to think that she'd have some decent opposition. Askanna is by Old Vic out of a Roselier mare - when you consider that she's only six at the start of the 2011/12 campaign, and with breeding like that, she can only get better if kept in training.

Saint Are's stable companion Spirit Of Adjisa got into the 140s with me after his made-all victory in the 2m4f Grade 1 novice at Punchestown, but isn't prominent in either of the ante-post Cheltenham lists and had a race that dropped nicely for him, with Neptune winner First Lieutenant only third, luck not on his side this time as it had been at Cheltenham. Suggestions in the press that this seven-year-old, the best horse Tim Vaughan has trained so far, would take part in the Ascot Stakes on the Flat cme to nought, but perhaps illustrate that he's heading for 3m races when he goes back over hurdles - something that his Flat form to date suggests isn't the best idea, with the pick of his record on the level coming over 1m4f. It's hard at this stage, though, to imagine this front-runner proving anything other than a setter-upper, whether he stays 3m or not.

So then, while the opposition for Big Buck's in 2011/12 might prove a little tougher than Grands Crus did, there's still every chance that he'll make it four World and Liverpool Hurdles in 2012.

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