Paul Nicholls
Patience is
A VIRTUE In 2009 Paul Nicholls’ Ditcheat stable housed the best jumpers in Britain or Ireland; the next decade proved more challenging yet the trainer heads to this year’s Cheltenham Festival with renewed vigour and hopes of big-race glory Words: Julian Muscat Photos: George Selwyn
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o the hordes descending on Cheltenham, it won’t feel like a decade since Celestial Halo came within a neck of completing the greatest heist of all. The five-year-old was touched off by Punjabi, a 22-1 outsider, in a photofinish to the Champion Hurdle. Had the outcome gone the other way Paul Nicholls would have captured all four of the Festival’s feature races. It was the year of Kauto Star and Denman, who had the Gold Cup to themselves on Friday. They were preceded by Master Minded, who strolled away with the Champion Chase on Wednesday, and Big Buck’s, an easy winner of the Stayers’ Hurdle on Thursday. No trainer has ever come close to such plunder. “We were spoilt,” Nicholls recalls. “We were incredibly lucky to have all those horses in one go. Each of them was a horse of a lifetime really.” It seemed back then as if the golden era would never end, yet it would not survive 12 months. On their returns to Cheltenham, Celestial Halo regressed into fourth place, while Kauto Star and Master Minded were beaten at oddson. Only Big Buck’s would successfully carry the torch. It was inevitable that less hedonistic times would settle over Nicholls’ base at Ditcheat, on the edge of the Mendip Hills in Somerset. The man himself knew
it, prepared as best he could for it. However, you don’t get to train equine luminaries unless you are driven. And the driven can’t accept second best. For all that, Nicholls’ achievements remained robust. He has been champion trainer six times in the intervening decade. At the close of this season his prize-money haul will
“We were incredibly lucky, each of them was a horse of a lifetime really” have exceeded £2 million for the 17th consecutive year. He will also have posted his 18th successive century of winners. On February 19, he sent out the 3,000th winner of his career. Nicholls is a master at getting the best from the horses he has. His record in valuable handicaps is second to none, yet what was apparent was that he hasn’t been well represented in the defining races. He was short of stars.
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