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Paul Nicholls is well aware he has enjoyed more than his fair share of magnificent Cheltenham Festival moments over the years.
The late 2000s and early 2010s were a veritable feast for Ditcheat, with the Galacticos of their day all residing in the Somerset yard.
The names trip off the tongue – the Stayers’ Hurdle superpower that was four-times race winner Big Buck’s, two-mile sensation and dual Champion Chase winner Master Minded and, of course, the staying heavyweights of 2008 Gold Cup victor Denman and the sublime Kauto Star, who is the only horse to regain the blue riband event when reversing form with his stablemate in 2009.
It is not surprising Nicholls has found it hard to match up to those heady days and with the Irish trainers dominating proceedings in recent years, the 14-times champion has had to be satisfied with relative Festival crumbs rather than feasts of old.
Frodon, Topofthegame, Politologue, Stay Away Fay and Stage Star have kept him in the Grade One game at Prestbury Park, but Nicholls freely admits his team is in a rebuilding stage he compares to that of Manchester United, with Old Trafford legend Sir Alex Ferguson a long-standing owner at his yard.
He said: “What did everyone think when we were winning all those Gold Cups? You ask Sir Alex, when they were winning the Premier League every year and you suddenly have a season you don’t, you wish things were different but it’s reality, you’ve got to be incredibly realistic.
“I’ve been incredibly lucky, I’m not far off training 4,000 winners now and I enjoy every single one of them. You can only be as good as the players on your team and we’re changing it up a little bit.
“I’d be lying to say I didn’t wish I had all those horses (again), but I’ve been lucky to have had those horses, we got the best out of Denman, Kauto, Master Minded, Big Buck’s, it went on and on – I often think I don’t deserve any more, but we’ll get it back.”
Nicholls’ usually strong form took a nosedive in January, with the trainer explaining: “They definitely weren’t right around the time we gave them their flu jabs. In all the time I’ve trained, that’s the first time I can remember a spell like that. They are coming right now.
“It has been a quiet season, but saying that, we’re not far off £2million in prize-money, we’re just a bit light on winners.
“I’d love to win the National and we’ve a lot of horses to run in the spring.
“I’m going to enjoy it a bit more, there’s not so much pressure. Of course, I’d rather be training them, but everyone would have loved to have trained the ones I’ve had before. We’ve got some nice horses that it just hasn’t worked out for this year.
“I think if you run horses in the wrong races, you end up doing the wrong thing. It is very hard to find those horses now.”
While Nicholls has no favourites in his select Festival squad, he gives favourable mentions to both Just A Rose and Jubilee Alpha, who run in the Ryanair Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle, while Weatherbys Champion Bumper contender No Drama This End and St. James’s Place Festival Challenge Cup Open Hunters’ Chase hope Shearer are also on his shortlist.
He said: “The two mares are probably my best chance, No Drama This End would have a chance and Shearer would have a squeak.
“There’s horses with chances, but I’d say we’ll have a bigger team for Aintree, which seems to suit our horses more. I’ve got five nice horses to run in the National, which is very exciting.”
Shearer boasts an extra family link, with daughter Olive, 19, likely to take the ride on a horse that Nicholls part-owns, with the trainer having confined his ante-post betting – an area in which he has had previous success – to just his hunter chase horse.
He added: “The only horse I’ve backed is Shearer, I’ve had a little each-way at 25-1, but other than that I haven’t had a bet.
“That was a while back because I knew what I was doing, but I’ve got nothing like when I backed Big Buck’s at 25-1 for the Stayers’ Hurdle! I had him in a double with Kauto Star and won about £39,000.
“The first three winners I ever had at Cheltenham – Call Equiname, Flagship Uberalles and See More Business – I backed in each-way trebles, but I’m not really a gambler – that was me being optimistic!”
