Hurricane Fly has already bagged three Grade One races this season, but the real test comes at about 3.20pm this afternoon, writes BRIAN O'CONNOR

IT MIGHT have happened almost four years ago but it could be argued the most significant piece of form going into today’s Champion Hurdle may have been a Listed race over a mile at the Saint-Cloud track in Paris in 2007.

Of course it isn’t an obvious link between that Prix Omnium and hurdling’s greatest prize. It would be another couple of years before Peddlers Cross and Menorah even saw a racecourse. But in terms of raw class it is unarguable that nothing else in today’s race could pull off what Hurricane Fly did that day.

Beating Literato by a couple of lengths looked a good performance at the time. By the end of 2007 it was spectacular. By then Literato had won a Champion Stakes at Newmarket and finished runner-up in the French Derby.

Behind the pair of them in third at Saint-Cloud was Spirit One. In 2008, he graduated to Group One glory too in the Arlington Million at Chicago. Like Literato, he is now enjoying a stallion career.

It hardly seems fair that their conqueror subsequently endured the unkindest cut of all but it resulted in a new career in Ireland that now threatens to earn him a place in Cheltenham Festival history.

The argument, and it’s an intriguing one, is that a horse with the latent class to beat top quality flat horses, and who takes to jumping with the obvious enthusiasm that Hurricane Fly has, must be the one to beat.

It’s not a bandwagon that Willie Mullins will jump on but the champion trainer isn’t exactly dissuading anyone else from climbing on board. Even for someone with Mullins’s Cheltenham experience there is an enticing suspicion that Hurricane Fly could pull off something spectacular today.

The number one Irish hope has been forced to miss the last two festivals due to setbacks, forcing his trainer to swallow intense frustration. Even in less than ideal circumstances, Hurricane Fly had previously exhibited the sort of talent that substantiated Mullins’s belief he was a genuine championship prospect.

But with a clear run to Cheltenham this season, Hurricane Fly has positively flowered, securing a trio of Grade One victories over his old rival Solwhit while leaving the undeniable impression there was plenty left in the locker for the day that really matters.

So much so that he occupies a curious role usually confined to top contenders: that of a horse admired by all but whose credentials are being nit-picked. One crib is that he has never run at Cheltenham before and course form is usually a plus at the festival. There is also the statistic that his sire Montjeu has never had a festival winner.

Neither point appears to overly worry Mullins. “Most of the winners I’ve had at Cheltenham were by sires who had never had a winner there. I don’t think Beneficial had one before Cooldine but he hasn’t had one since,” he says. “You take something like that on board but I’ve never been worried by it.”

He adds: “It’s like him not having run at Cheltenham before: It’s a concern but not an undue one. It’s not really a concern for me at all. Every other track he’s gone to for the first time, he’s nearly always won. And he’s won three times at Leopardstown, which is always a great trial for Cheltenham.”

What Mullins will admit to anticipating is how all that class could thrive on a decent racing surface compared to the testing conditions Hurricane Fly has been sluicing through all winter.

“I think that has to be a plus for us,” he says. “The problem he had with his heel before the Irish Champion cleared up and now we have got him here which was the main thing we wanted to do at the start of the season.”

The main thing Hurricane Fly’s connections wanted at the start of his three-year-old career was to aim at the very top flat races in France. He ran four more times that flat season and finished nearer last than first in all of them. For Mullins he has run 11 times and only been beaten twice.

It might not be circumstances originally hoped for but the ex-French horse arrives in England with the hopes of Ireland riding on his chance of becoming a champion.