While the present Champion Hurdle hero Punjabi was originally chosen to run in the WBX.com Fighting Fifth Hurdle at Newcastle, news is that his stable mate Binocular will now replace him. Instead, Punjabi will be trying his luck at the boylesports.com International Hurdle at Cheltenham.

Punjabi was also booked for Gosforth’s Park’s Grade One contest to be held on Saturday; however his trainer Nicky Henderson thinks that Binocular is the one who is much better at this point in the season.

So given these changes, Binocular will now move north on Saturday week while Punjabi will be returning to Cheltenham on December 12. Henderson states that this decision of swapping Punjabi and Binocular was made on Tuesday, after discussing matters with both owners.

He also states that while both the horses are in great form; Binocular seems now seems to be the cleaner and more ready of the two. He clearly states that Punjabi is not suffering a setback, but that it seems better to switch both Punjabi and Binocular around.

The horses will be participating in a schooling session at Henderson’s Lambourn base on Thursday where Barry Geraghty will be schooling Punjabi and AP McCoy will be schooling Binocular.