BetMGM Elite Hurdle
 QuinnBet
Grade 2, Wincanton 14:55
£70,000 guaranteed,
4yo plus,
1m 7f 65y, Class 1    
Saturday 8th November 2025

1 Rubaud 1/8F
2 Hamlet''s Night 8/1
3 Tax For Max 20/1
4 ran Distances: nk, 7½l, 8l
Time: 3m 32.34s (slow by 7.34s)

Rubaud had to dig far deeper than his loyal backers might have expected to complete a BetMGM Elite Hurdle hat-trick, on a day when Paul Nicholls helped himself to a Wincanton treble.

The Ditcheat maestro has long treated this Grade Two as familiar territory – 11 wins and counting – and while names such as Azertyuiop, Celestial Halo and Zarkandar decorate the roll of honour, it is the dual-purpose dynamo Rubaud who has recently turned it into his own private preserve.

He wasn’t quite operating with the usual swagger, but when the race demanded answers, the 1-8 favourite kept finding them. Harry Cobden had to press every button, yet Rubaud stayed on with that trademark relentlessness to fend off James Owen’s willing Hamlet’s Night by a length.

Nicholls said: “He had a very hard race the other day at Kempton, and he knew he had a race, it took a while for him to get over it.

“I could tell in the paddock that he didn’t look great in his coat, and he has been a bit flat this week. We have had to do the best we could to get him right.

“When we went to Kempton, he had a lot of hard work and he was ready for his life. This week we have had to do things a bit different to freshen him up. He is a good horse that is tough and keeps galloping.

“It’s a testament to him and what a class horse he is that he can come back from a very hard race and win today.”

The next chapter may come back over fences, with Nicholls offering a clear-eyed view of where the horse sits.

“We know he is not going to win a Christmas Hurdle, so I don’t want to waste a run. He has won two good races now and if he doesn’t run until after Christmas, I don’t mind.

“He is the sort that could run well in the Silviniaco Conti Chase over two and a half miles as he won the Pendil at Kempton last season.

“There are no more Grade Twos like this until the Kingwell Hurdle back here or the International Hurdle at Cheltenham. The ground could be too soft for him there, but the Kingwell will be a possibility.”

A performance not without its scruffier edges, but the sort that tells you why Rubaud keeps turning up in the winner’s enclosure: when the screws tighten, he refuses to wilt.

BetMGM Elite Hurdle (Limited Handicap)
£70,000 guaranteed, 4yo plus, 1m 7f 65y, Class 1
4 ran
Going: Good, Good to Firm in places

POS. DIST HORSE AGE WGT TRAINER JOCKEY SP
1    Rubaud 7 11-8 Paul Nicholls Harry Cobden 1/8F
2 nk Hamlet's Night 4 11-2 James Owen James Bowen 8/1
3 7½ Tax For Max 8 11-2 Nigel & Willy Twiston-Davies 20/1
4 8 Frere d'Armes 8 11-2 Dan Skelton Tristan Durrell 40/1