Paul Nicholls (copyright Megan Dent/the Jockey Club)

Cheltenham Festival: A different meeting for Paul Nicholls

By David Ord

Horse Racing

Mon February 24, 2025 · 2M ago

The Paul Nicholls Cheltenham Stable Visit on Monday was different.

I was fortunate enough to be there when some of the genuine giants of the jumping game were housed in Millionaire’s Row at Manor Farm Stables, Ditcheat.

You had to fight for space to get a clear shot as the champion trainer paraded star after star. Satellite TV trucks were parked up on the small lane outside, live broadcasts going out to the local and national news.

There were rosettes, thousands of photos and the owners of the leading lights on hand to help share the burden of the countless interview requests.

Patrick Mullins: Weekend review and Cheltenham handicap weights

Now the cupboard is barer. Not bare, but this is a period of transition for the 14-time champion trainer and his team.

Ten horses, who are bound for Prestbury Park, parade in front of us this time as do the five genuine Randox Grand National contenders, one of whom, Stay Away Fay, will take in the Ultima at Cheltenham on his road to Aintree.

They pose for photos in front of the boxes that used to house the Ditcheat giants, their achievements marked by green honours boards on their former boxes.

And there’s no disguising that star quality, the sprinkling of magic dust, is missing from this year’s team.

Nicholls doesn’t have a runner shorter than 9/1 for any Festival race just over two weeks out. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have chances at the meeting, but it does make the week feel more of a free hit compared to the high octane renewals of the past.

“It does feel like that this year,” he admits. “But I much prefer having the pressure of having a really good one. Those days there was pressure of the highest order, and I was incredibly lucky to have those horses and trying to find them again is not so easy now.

“You look back, Kauto, Denman, Big Buck’s, Master Minded, Neptune, they were amazing horses and I don’t have any like that now.

“You’re just hoping you’re going to find them again, they tend to find you, but it was easier to buy them in those days. It’s not quite so easy now. They were great horses, we won four Gold Cups, a million Champion Chases and World Hurdles.

“I’ve been so incredibly lucky, and it is a challenge to get horses like that back. But I’m realistic, you shouldn’t over-face horses, you have to run them in the right races on the right day.

“I could have run Regent’s Stroll at Cheltenham for example, but it hasn’t quite worked out for him. I’m minding him. He’s very much like Clan Des Obeaux and Frodon. They ran in Triumph Hurdles and finished halfway down the field but once they grew up and went chasing just look at how far they got.

“That’s what I’m trying to do with him. If you run horses in the wrong races at the wrong time of their careers, you’re going to end up doing the wrong thing.”

He isn’t an isolated case when it comes to emerging young talent either. Nicky Henderson has Lulamba and Palladium for the JCB Triumph but barely a horse to run in the open novice hurdles.

Dan Skelton has The New Lion in the Turners but is thin on the ground elsewhere in the Grade One novice hurdles with nothing else remotely threatening to start a single-figure price.

The tap for the top young talent into Britain remains switched off.

“If I had something obvious for the novice hurdles and it was good enough, Christ it would be running, of course it would, but it’s bloody hard to find those horses now. We’ve tried different routes including buying bumper horses and bringing them through, but we’ll see,” Nicholls added.

“It’s nice to go into Cheltenham looking forward to it but I’d much rather be going there with horses in those big races, but I’ve been incredibly lucky to have done that so many times in the past. I can now go and enjoy it and do the best with what we’ve got, which we will.”

A moment to savour for the Pic D'Orhy team

The slow start to 2025 for the team has been well documented but Pic D’Orhy and Rubauld on successive Saturdays have helped lift the mood.

“The six winners we had in January I don’t think had been given their flu jab, we timed it so they were going to run. The horses just haven’t been right but they’re coming right now,” the trainer said.

“We had one on Monday that I thought would run well but ran shocking and I don’t know whether he’s just got the tail-end of it but there are a lot of yards who aren’t flying at the moment, who are struggling a little bit, and I don’t think January is a great time with all this rain and other things.

“Also, I don’t know why it is, whether it’s the way we train them or the gallops we use, but our horses hate heavy ground and are much better on better ground in the spring and autumn. I’m just waiting for the ground to dry up.

“The class horses we had, the very top ones, would go on any ground and do whatever you want but it’s been a bit quiet for us this season but saying that we’re not far off two million in prize money, we have the same strike-rate as Dan (Skelton), 19%, which isn’t too bad, but we’re just a bit light on winners this year.”

There’s still that glint in the eye. When Neptune Collonges won the trainer his one and only Randox Grand National, his first reaction was to point out he’d blown Nicky Henderson away in the title race.

And even now, in a season when there have been so many questions to answer, he knows one haymaker in the first Saturday of April could still put him firmly in the battle for a record-equalling 15th crown.

“We’d have to win the National and will be doing our best to do that, but we have a lot of horses to run in the spring and definitely better ground will help,” he smiled.

He was asked how he’ll feel parking up at Cheltenham this year knowing in all probability he’ll be watching the big races dominated by the same trainers who have had a stranglehold for some time now, led by Willie Mullins?

“What would they have thought years ago when I was doing it?” he replied.

“If you ask Sir Alex the same, you win all those Premier League titles and everything and suddenly for a few seasons you don’t, you’re going to wish things were different.

“But it’s reality, you have to be realistic. I’ve been very lucky. I’m not far off training 4,000 winners; I enjoy every single one and days like Saturday and the one before are great, but you can only do as well as the players in the team allow you to.

“We’ve got to change ours; I’m going to do that a little bit, but is it frustrating? No. Look I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wish I had all those wonderful horses, but I was lucky to enough have them in the past.

“We got the best out of Denman, Kauto, Master Minded, Neptune, Big Buck’s. I could go on and on and on. So, you can think I don’t deserve any more but we’ll get back and I’m going to enjoy it more, there’s no pressure, and I’ll enjoy watching all those good horses win but I’ll be wishing I trained them. Of course I will, but everyone else will be wishing they’d trained the good ones I’ve had before.

“We have some nice horses like Regent’s Stroll and Caldwell Potter who it hasn’t worked out for yet. But it will.”

Caldwell Potter at Ditcheat (copyright The Jockey Club)

And then it strikes you. How typical of the man standing in front of you, the competitor, the fighter, would it be if Caldwell Potter was to win the Jack Richards Novice Handicap Chase next month?

A horse whose price tag meant there was scrutiny on him and his trainer from the moment he stepped off the ferry from Ireland.

It hasn’t been plain sailing, pardon the pun, up to now. But Paul Nicholls loves nothing more than Cheltenham Festival winners and silencing the doubters.

There’s a two-for-one offer for him right there on day three of the Cheltenham Festival.

Cheltenham Festival: A different meeting for Paul Nicholls

More from Sporting Life

Safer gambling