Where do Willie Mullins, Gordon Elliott, Nicky Henderson and Paul Nicholls run their best young prospects?
Adam Houghton highlights the tracks where four leading National Hunt trainers tend to unleash their brightest prospects.
Willie Mullins
Willie Mullins has a 35.99% strike rate with hurdling debutants since the start of the 2017/18 season, an impressive but unsurprising statistic for a trainer who has saddled countless Grade One-winning novice hurdlers in recent years, including the likes of Statuaire, Minella Cocooner, Sir Gerhard, The Nice Guy, Brandy Love and State Man in 2021/22 alone.
Overall, Mullins has a record of 122/339 with horses having their first run over hurdles since the start of the 2017/18 season. He has been most prolific at Tramore (12/23), where his winners include the subsequent Grade One winner Whiskey Sour, and Clonmel (11/21), where his winners include the now top-class chaser Allaho.
Mullins has a good strike rate with hurdling debutants at Tramore (52.17%) and Clonmel (52.38%), though not as good as at Kilbeggan where he has saddled eight winners from 13 runners (61.54%). Admittedly, they have mostly been lesser lights at Closutton, bar perhaps Aramon, who went on to win at the top level later in his novice season over hurdles.
Mullins has given plenty of horses their hurdling debuts at big tracks like Punchestown (10/32) and Fairyhouse (3/27) in recent years.
However, the 16-times champion trainer in Ireland clearly isn’t afraid to look elsewhere when the situation demands it, a point he made in his recent stable tour with Sporting Life when discussing where Facile Vega, unbeaten in four starts in bumpers last season, could kick off his hurdling career in the coming weeks.
Mullins said: “He [Facile Vega] is one we're really looking forward to. I don't know where I'm going to start him off – we'll wait for ground, the right opportunity. He doesn't have to go to a Leopardstown or Punchestown to start off, we've often gone down the country with our nice horses to get them going at the right time."
Mullins has been similarly potent in recent years when it comes to identifying the right opportunity for a horse having their first start over fences. For context, Mullins has a record of 66/157 with chasing debutants since the start of the 2017/18 season, yielding a strike rate of 42.04%.
His team of novice chasers in 2021/22 was another strong group, featuring the Grade One winners Ferny Hollow, Blue Lord, Galopin des Champs, Gentleman de Mee and Capodanno. Incidentally, Ferny Hollow and Gentleman de Mee both kicked off their chasing careers in the same race at Punchestown last December, with the first-named horse coming out on top on that occasion.
That victory made Ferny Hollow one of eight horses (from 19 runners) from the Mullins stable to make a winning chasing debut at Punchestown in recent years, along with the likes of Faugheen, Asterion Forlonge and Colreevy.
Mullins’ chasing debutants have also been seen to very good effect at Fairyhouse (7/21) where his winners include Monkfish, Blue Lord and Stattler, while his winners at Naas (5/10) include Chacun Pour Soi, Tornado Flyer and Capodanno.
As for the smaller tracks, Mullins has a 100% strike rate with his chasing debutants at Limerick (4/4), while the talented mares Elimay and Concertista have helped him to a 75% strike rate at Cork (3/4).
Gordon Elliott
A strike rate of 17.32% since the start of the 2017/18 season underlines that Gordon Elliott doesn’t send out first-time-out winners over hurdles with the consistency that Mullins does, but he too has enjoyed plenty of success in the novice hurdling ranks in recent years, including last season when Mighty Potter, Ginto and Three Stripe Life all won in Grade One company.
Altogether Elliott has a record of 84/485 with horses having their first run over hurdles since the start of the 2017/18 campaign. His best courses numerically have been Navan (12/46), where his winners include Battleoverdoyen and Ginto – both of whom went on to win the Grade One Lawlor’s of Naas Novice Hurdle – and Punchestown (12/65), where his winners include the unbeaten novice Samcro and the useful juvenile Pied Piper.
Elliott also enjoys a formidable 43.48% strike rate at Down Royal (10/23). The maiden on Champion Chase day is a race which Elliott has targeted to particularly good effect in recent years, winning three consecutive renewals between 2019 and 2021 with Envoi Allen, Ballyadam and Mighty Potter, all of whom went on to win at the top level over hurdles.
At the other end of the spectrum, Elliott has a surprisingly poor record with his hurdling debutants at Leopardstown. For context, you have to go back to December 2012 for the last time Elliott sent out a winner at Leopardstown having their first start over hurdles and he is 0/21 with such runners since the start of the 2017/18 season.
Elliott has sent out just three chasing newcomers at Leopardstown during the same period, but he’s enjoyed plenty of success at the track with horses who had the benefit of previous experience over fences, notably winning the Grade One Neville Hotels Novice Chase last season with Fury Road, his yard’s fourth winner of the race in five years.
Fury Road had previously made his chasing debut at Fairyhouse and that seems to be a favoured starting destination for Elliott. Overall, he has a record of 39/221 with horses having their first run over fences since the start of the 2017/18 season – 9/31 came at Fairyhouse at a strike rate of 29.03%.
Fury Road wasn’t successful when embarking on his chasing career at Fairyhouse, but stablemates Shattered Love, The Storyteller and Hardline all were before going on to register Grade One wins of their own over fences.
Elliott’s chasing newcomers have also been worth following at Down Royal (4/13) where his winners include Delta Work, Samcro and Envoi Allen, who won the beginners chase at the Champion Chase meeting in consecutive years between 2018 and 2020.
Killarney (3/9) is another smaller track where Elliott has enjoyed a good time of things with his chasing debutants, the classy Felix Desjy featuring among his winners.
Nicky Henderson
Nicky Henderson has won three of the last seven renewals of the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival, including the latest edition with Constitution Hill, who produced the best performance by a novice hurdler in Timeform’s long experience when beating stable companion Jonbon by 22 lengths.
Constitution Hill had immediately looked something out of the ordinary when making a successful hurdling debut at Sandown last December and in itself it’s quite unusual for Henderson to give a horse their first start over timber at that track – Constitution Hill was just the eighth since the start of the 2017/18 season and the third to be successful.
Henderson's most recent winner of the Supreme before that was Shishkin, who gained his third win from as many completed starts over hurdles at the 2020 Festival. That was after he’d made a rather inauspicious start to his hurdling career, his debut at Newbury ending with a heavy fall at the second flight.
It’s no coincidence that Shishkin started out at Newbury with that track seemingly being Henderson’s idea of the perfect place to begin a novice hurdler's education.
Overall, Henderson has saddled 43 hurdling debutants at Newbury since the start of the 2017/18 season, yielding 17 winners at a strike rate of 39.53%. Others who went on to win graded novice events after making their hurdling debuts at Newbury include Claimantakinforgan, Mister Fisher, Santini and the aforementioned Jonbon.
Warwick (8/29) and Kempton (7/15) are also popular tracks with Henderson when unleashing a novice hurdler. His seven winners at Kempton include Epatante and OK Corral, that pair both contributing to an impressive 46.67% strike rate.
Overall, Henderson has a record of 78/261 with horses having their first run over hurdles since the start of the 2017/18 season. That equates to a strike rate of 29.89%, while his record with horses having their first run over fences during that period – 36/119 at a strike rate of 30.25% – is even better still.
Henderson’s chasing newcomers have appeared at a wide range of tracks, though Newbury (2/14) has once again been a regular haunt for his better prospects. Santini and Champ, for example, have both made successful chasing debuts at that course before going on to make an impact at the top level over fences.
Similar comments apply to Ascot (3/8) where Angels Breath, Chantry House and Allart have all made winning chasing debuts in recent years. Chantry House went on to win twice at the top level in his novice season over fences, including at the Cheltenham Festival, while Angels Breath and Allart could easily have done something similar had injury not intervened.
Henderson has also enjoyed his fair share of success at Kempton (3/9) – most notably with the subsequent Sporting Life Arkle winner Shishkin – and Uttoxeter (3/9), while his strike rates at Catterick (2/2), Hexham (2/3), Leicester (2/3) and Towcester (2/3) read well from even smaller representation, too.
Paul Nicholls
Nicky Henderson is pretty much the only trainer to have disrupted the Irish domination of the Grade One novice hurdles at the Cheltenham Festival in recent years and it’s perhaps telling that Paul Nicholls, the 13-times champion trainer in Britain, hasn’t won one of those races since Al Ferof struck in the 2011 edition of the Supreme.
Nicholls has enjoyed top level success in the novice hurdling ranks more recently, though, winning the last two renewals of the Challow Novices’ Hurdle at Newbury with Bravemansgame and Stage Star, respectively, plus the latest edition of the Sefton Novices’ Hurdle at Aintree with Gelino Bello.
Nicholls has also made his mark with his novice hurdlers at a lower level, including with those making their debut. Overall, he has a record of 41/187 with horses having their first start over hurdles since the start of the 2017/18 season, yielding a strike rate of 21.93%.
Nicholls has been most prolific at Chepstow (10/35) where his winners include the aforementioned Stage Star and the useful Knappers Hill. Incidentally, the novice event Knappers Hill won had been split into two divisions in 2020 – Flic Ou Voyou won one and Bravemansgame filled the runner-up spot in the other, both horses based at Ditcheat who were having their first run over timber.
Taunton (6/15), Wincanton (4/24) and Exeter (3/19) are other venues where Nicholls has enjoyed plenty of success with his hurdling newcomers. His 40% strike rate at Taunton is one that he has bettered at the likes of Lingfield (2/3), Fontwell (2/4), Hereford (2/4), Kelso (1/2) and Newcastle (1/2), all tracks where he has been amongst the winners on his infrequent visits.
Meanwhile, Topofthegame became the first Nicholls-trained horse to win a Grade One novice chase at the Cheltenham Festival for 11 years when landing the RSA Insurance Novices’ Chase in 2018, but he’s certainly not the only horse from the yard to have made an impact in that division in recent years.
Since the start of the 2017/18 season, Nicholls has saddled four other horses to win a Grade One novice chase in Britain, namely Black Corton (Kauto Star Novices’ Chase in 2017), Diego du Charmil (Maghull Novices’ Chase in 2018), Dynamite Dollars (Henry VIII Novices’ Chase in 2018) and Bravemansgame (Kauto Star Novices’ Chase in 2021).
In terms of chasing debutants, Nicholls has consistently demonstrated that he is well capable of getting one ready, boasting a record of 38/144 with horses having their first run over fences since the start of the 2017/18 season, yielding a strike rate of 26.39%.
Newton Abbot (6/21) is where Nicholls has saddled the most winners/runners, with the subsequent Grade One winners Diego du Charmil and Bravemansgame featuring amongst those who have made a successful chasing debut at the track.
Nicholls’ chasing debutants have also been worth following at Newbury (3/5) where his winners include Danny Whizzbang and Next Destination, while his two winners at Ascot (2/5), Dolos and Greaneteen, both went on to achieve a high level of form over fences.
As for the smaller tracks, Nicholls certainly hasn’t wasted his runners at Uttoxeter (2/3) and Fontwell (3/5), both tracks where he also has an excellent strike rate with horses having their first run over the larger obstacles.
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