Ruby Walsh is predicting defeat for odds-on favourite Constitution Hill on day one of the .

Walsh is the all-time leading jockey at the Festival with 59 wins who has become a leading TV pundit.

He rode four winners of the Champion Hurdle, on Hurricane Fly twice plus Faugheen and Annie Power.

Constitution Hill is 4-6 favourite to reclaim the crown he captured in 2023 in a race in which

Yet Walsh is backing Gordon Elliott’s “spectacular” mare Brighterdaysahead to give Constitution Hill a run for his money in the Unibet Champion Hurdle on Tuesday.

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The six-year-old is unbeaten since suffering her sole defeat to date at Cheltenham last season.

On her latest start Brighterdaysahead left last year’s Champion Hurdle hero, the Willie Mullins-trained State Man, trailing in her wake when producing a devastating display at Leopardstown’s meeting.

Walsh, speaking at the said: “She blew me away in Leopardstown – I was watching it thinking, you’re going too fast, you’re going too fast, you’re going too fast, the whole way.

“And all of a sudden, they were going too fast for the pacemaker, he falls in a hole going to the third-last, King Of Kingsfield, the next minute the mare picks up, heads to the second-last and away off the bend again.

“You’re thinking ‘she can’t’ and she did and she kept doing it. Take out whatever way you read the race as in were the rest of them sharp enough at the start or why didn’t they follow her, (but) when you just watch what she did, to me that was the best performance I’ve seen over hurdles in Leopardstown in a long, long time. It’s the one hurdle performance this year that you went ‘Jesus’.”

Brighterdaysahead and her pacesetting stablemate King Of Kingsfield dominated from flag-fall at Leopardstown.

On whether similar tactics can be replicated at Cheltenham, Walsh added: “No, it’s a more undulating track so it’s whatever way you look at it, how far do you think King Of Kingsfield will bring Brighterdaysahead? How far do you think he needs to bring Brighterdaysahead?

“I think King Of Kingsfield will bring her to the fourth-last in the Champion Hurdle. She’ll take it off him as they rise up on to the top of the hill and it’ll be what the crowd want from there home.

“Nico (de Boinville, on Constitution Hill) will be on their tail, I hope two of Willie’s (State Man and Lossiemouth) are right behind them and it’ll be whoever wins from there. But I think you’ll have some running done when you get past her.”

Walsh also picked one horse to follow on each day of the four-day meeting.

His day one Nap is Beyond Your Dreams in the Hallgarten And Novum Wines Juvenile Handicap Hurdle.

“I’ll have to go for a price so I’ll go for Beyond Your Dreams,” he said. “I think the obvious ones early in the card – Kopek Des Bordes [Supreme], Majborough [Arkle] but look if you’re going for something at some bit of a price.”

He selected Copacabana in Wednesday's Weatherbys Champion Bumper while Jungle Boogie is his tip in the Ryanair Chase on Thursday.

“I think it’s the hardest day, mostly handicaps, so I think Jungle Boogie each-way in the Ryanair,” he added, then recommended Angels Dawn in the St James’s Place Hunters’ Chase on Friday, when Galopin Des Champs goes for a Cheltenham Gold Cup hat-trick.

He said: “Galopin Des Champs is the nap and I hope he wins but at 1-2 no-one’s going to want to hear that so Angels Dawn.”