THE NEW ONE is the best racehorse trained in the Cotswolds but his trainer Nigel Twiston-Davies feels bad luck has cost him the chance of becoming one of the all-time greats.

Having won the Neptune Investment Novices’ Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival in 2013, The New One was vying for favouritism in his first attempt at the Champion Hurdle 12 months ago.

However, his winning chance was abruptly derailed at the third flight when he was badly hampered by the fall of the ill-fated Our Conor.

The New One did remarkably well to come from the rear to be beaten less than three lengths in third place behind the winner Jezki. He has won all five races since.

“I thought he could win three Champion Hurdles like Istabraq and See You Then,” said Twiston-Davies last week.

“But he lost eight to 10 lengths in the race last year. He was brought to a standstill and had to pick himself up and carry on.”

So it is time for redemption at the opening of the best jump racing festival on the planet at Cheltenham on Tuesday when The New One returns for his second Champion bid.

If Twiston-Davies likes anything more than winning a race at the Festival – he has won 15 already – it is taking down a much-hyped Irish challenger in the process.

He has the chance to do so again because the talking horse in the race is Faugheen, winner of all eight of his starts, including the 2014 Neptune Investment Novices’ Hurdle – the race The New One had won the previous year.

Indeed, The New One is outnumbered by Irish rivals at the head of the Champion betting with all three of his principal challengers coming from across the water.

Tony McCoy’s final ride in a Champion Hurdle before retirement, Jezki, is the reigning title holder but has been beaten in his last three races; Hurricane Fly has won the race twice before but is now a veteran at the age of 11, and then there is Faugheen, like Hurricane Fly trained by Willie Mullins, who has the ante-post favourite in no fewer than five of the seven races on the opening day.

Faugheen won over three miles before stepping back to the two-mile distance of the Champion and Twiston-Davies believes the front runner may be short of top class speed.

“We won’t be allowing Faugheen out of our sights,” said the trainer. “The New One quickens off any pace but does Faugheen have a turn of foot?”

Twiston-Davies’ son Sam has his best ever book of Festival rides now that he is first jockey to the powerful Paul Nicholls yard in Somerset – but his contract allows him to continue riding The New One.

As well as The New One, Sam nominates Sire Collonges (Wednesday’s Glenfarclas Cross Country Chase) as not only one of his best rides of the opening couple of days but of the week as a whole. That will come as bad news to the ante-post favourite in the race and last year’s second, Any Currency who is based in the Cotswolds at Martin Keighley’s Condicote stables.

Sam admitted that his dad Nigel is ‘very excited’ about the chance of Little Jon in Tuesday’s Chaps Restaurant Barbados Novices’ Handicap Chase.

But the jockey is clearly not so sure. “If Little Jon is to win, he’s got to improve his jumping,” said Sam.

The Naunton team have turned to Andrew Nicholson, the Marlborough-based former world eventing number one, to improve the gelding’s suspect jumping technique.

Young Twiston-Davies is far more positive about the prospects of Nicholls-trained Aux Ptits Soins if he takes his chance in Wednesday’s Coral Cup.

“He’s come over from France and looks to have an attractive mark,” said Sam.

Another major player on day two is unbeaten chaser Coneygree, owned by a syndicate who live in the Cotswolds, if he goes for the easier option of the RSA Chase rather than a tilt at the Gold Cup on Friday.