“We’re back in the same boat,” Nicky Henderson says with a smile and a sigh as he considers the immense pressure bearing down on him while he plots the future of Constitution Hill, a seemingly miraculous horse whose next appearances on the track will transfix National Hunt racing. Constitution Hill has built a winning aura which could match and even surpass the hold that Sprinter Sacre, another of Henderson’s great horses, had on the racing public 10 years ago.
“When Sprinter was in his heyday,” Henderson continues, “there wasn’t a horse in the world who could have beaten him. Anything but sheer brilliance, anything less than a win by 20 lengths, was a catastrophe. People went to see him because he was phenomenal. With Constitution Hill, the amazing thing is that he’s only had eight races over hurdles. So it’s been lovely how quickly the racing world latched on to him.”
Timeform, which provides the most authoritative comparison of racing through the eras, ranks Sprinter Sacre as the third greatest steeplechaser in history, behind Flyingbolt and Arkle who won three successive Gold Cups in the 1960s. Yet Michael Dickinson, who trained the first five home in the 1983 Gold Cup, describes Constitution Hill as the best horse he has ever seen in the air and the greatest horse since Arkle.
Henderson nods but then says: “I don’t like comparing them. Of course it’s flattering because Arkle was obviously the greatest horse I can remember. I was fascinated by Arkle.”
But Henderson, aged 72, knows any meaningful comparison with Arkle can only begin if and when Constitution Hill begins jumping fences and heads towards the Gold Cup. In 2022, Constitution Hill won his first Cheltenham Festival race by 22 lengths in the Supreme Novice Hurdle. At the Festival last year, while the Irish turned the rest of the four days into an emerald procession, he again produced the standout performance in the Champion Hurdle.
In a fascinating new book about Henderson, My Life in 12 Horses, Kate Johnson writes beautifully about that race: “He crossed the hurdles like an arrow: long, low, whip-crack quick ... Constitution Hill accelerated around the final turn, powered to four or five lengths clear for his motionless jockey, as they left the field in his wake. The sun caught his quarters, his tail streamed behind him, his mane lifted in the wind, he was flying, storming the hill, untouchable, magnificent, other. He passed the post, first by what seemed to be a comfortable, almost chosen, nine lengths. It was that rarest of races, a no‑contest thriller.”
Henderson leans forward in his lounge at his Seven Barrows yard near Lambourn in Berkshire. His filmy eyes, which in recent years he had feared would turn blind, are suddenly glittering. “The cauldron of Cheltenham is a very good test of a horse’s mentality and a lot of them can’t cope. But this horse is very different. Even with Sprinter we used earplugs at Cheltenham. It stopped the atmosphere getting to him. But [Constitution Hill] never needs them.”
Constitution Hill is so serene that he was dozing when Henderson checked on him on the morning of the Champion Hurdle. “He’s always sleeping. He’s got this ridiculous, wonderful temperament and his greatest asset is his mind. Nothing bothers him. He works, eats, sleeps. Works, eats, sleeps. The same routine day in, day out.”
Once he is racing he seems to fly – so much so that, at the last Cheltenham hurdle, the Irish jockey Patrick Mullins saw Constitution Hill lift his front legs two inches while in the air. “The horse thought he had come up too soon,” Henderson says, “but I’m sure there was a shadow on the hurdle. He came up on the shadow, not the hurdle, and thought, ‘Aarrgghh! I’m not getting there!’ So, like a plane in mid‑flight, he soared up.”
Henderson shakes his head at such jumping power. “It was like Pegasus.”
Has he schooled the horse over fences? “No, but only because of the ground. He is fit enough to do so but I really don’t want to do it on the all-weather [track]. We’ll discuss it over the next few days and see. Jumping probably isn’t the issue. Stamina may be. That’s where the big question comes.”
Constitution Hill could replicate the feat of Henderson’s first great horse, See You Then, who won three consecutive Champion Hurdles from 1985 to 1987. But Henderson knows that true greatness could be measured if Constitution Hill eventually becomes only the second horse after Dawn Run to win the Champion Hurdle and the Gold Cup.
“He could have the stamina,” Henderson says when asked if the horse will cope with a gruelling race. Yet Constitution Hill has never had to push himself and that simple observation encourages Henderson to exclaim: “Exactly. Absolutely.”
When John Gosden, one of the best trainers in Flat racing, asked what they might do next, Henderson said he would love to aim for the Gold Cup. But he added the kicker that he meant the Ascot Gold Cup which is one of Flat racing’s premier races. “I was joking,” Henderson says now as he recalls Godsen’s surprise. “But I’d love to have done it. Of course you never could because the chance of getting the right ground for him in June is zero. You would have also have to keep working him until June which would have taken out his summer holiday. But I think he’d have been fantastic [on the Flat]. Michael Buckley [the owner of Constitution Hill] is very adventurous but he definitely didn’t think it was the right idea.”
Henderson, Buckley and Nico de Boinville, his stable jockey who rides Constitution Hill, will announce their plans this week. “It’s very difficult. If you’ve got a horse that can break track records standing on his head over two miles, the big question is, ‘What’s next?’”
As the book shows, with authority and insight, Henderson has trained outstanding horses of contrasting character from See You Then to Altior. He has won all the significant races apart from the Grand National – even though Zongalero finished second in Henderson’s first crack at the race in 1979. He dismisses the anomaly of relative failure at the National as one of the quirks of racing from which no trainer is immune.
The glory of his 73 Cheltenham Festival winners is balanced by the raw pain of losing a horse as cherished as Simonsig on the track. Even the majesty of Sprinter Sacre was shaded by a heart condition which stopped him racing at his peak. But, in one of the great training performances, Henderson nurtured Sprinter back to fitness and, three years after he first won the Champion Chase, he overcame all doubts to win it again in 2016.
“It was the most unforgettable day,” Henderson says, and “the sweetest” of his career. “The atmosphere was unbelievable and the reception was incredible. I always said Dad [Johnny Henderson, a stockbroker who loved and invested in racing] put the roof on Cheltenham. I made a good attempt to take it off.”
Sprinter took Henderson “to places no other horse did. He was ridiculously good-looking and he knew it. He could do what he liked and he had so much ability, so much scope, he could jump like no other horse.”
Yet the expectation surrounding Sprinter in the early years was almost unbearable. In the book Henderson says: “It was hell for us because anything other than sheer brilliance was unacceptable. The rest of the world loved it. I hated it; all it could do was go wrong.”
Henderson seems sanguine as he prepares for more expectation with Constitution Hill. It helps that this horse is laid back rather than a peacock like Sprinter. Even when he bought him for Buckley, on the recommendation of his previous owner, Barry Geraghty, Henderson’s stable jockey for years, Constitution Hill “was the slowest walker and the slowest trotter I ever saw. There was nothing about him whatsoever.”
At Seven Barrows, Henderson complained to Geraghty that the horse was “a yak”. But then Constitution Hill began to race and arrow over the hurdles. His victory at Cheltenham last year meant “he was our ninth Champion Hurdler”, Henderson says. “Binocular, Buveur d’Air, See You Then were very, very good horses and fantastic hurdlers. But this horse uses the hurdle to make two lengths, not lose any.”
The Gold Cup is run over three miles and 2½ furlongs, containing 22 draining fences, and the desire of the racing public will be to see Constitution Hill pushed towards that goal. So Henderson is caught again between the pressure of giddy anticipation, his conflicted responsibilities towards racing and the horse’s welfare. In the end the latter always wins. But hope rises that Constitution Hill will be ready to jump fences in a series of races which eventually leads to a Gold Cup tilt. If he could then win the greatest race of them all it would be a landmark that returns the sport briefly back to the mainstream.
Henderson and his wife, Sophie, will leave the yard straight after this interview to travel to London for his latest check with an eye specialist. While admitting he can barely see anything out of one eye, he cackles that he can see all he needs out of the other one. His fears of retirement have been banished and he smiles when asked if he will train into his 80s.
“They’ve helped my eyes a lot and I’ve got nothing else to do. You’re certainly not going to give up when you’ve got this type of horse. There’s no way. I love it and it’s a great game with highs and lows. I was champion trainer when I was 67 and I said there were bound to have been older champions like Fulke Walwyn [who trained four Gold Cup winners and finally retired after 40 years in 1986] and Fred Winter [the eight-time champion trainer who was assisted by Henderson in the 1970s].
“John Randall, who does the Racing Post stats, looked up all the champion trainers. He said: ‘Well done, Nicky, you’ve broken the record. The bad news is you’ve only beaten your own record. You broke it three years ago.’ Fulke Walwyn and Fred Winter were legends to me. So it’s a bit humbling.”
Henderson has been champion trainer six times, winning his last title in 2020, and he has been behind only Paul Nicholls since then. We amble out for a few more photos. Constitution Hill, having been with us earlier, and showing a little pre-season belly after a lazy summer, is back in his box. The hard work resumes soon and all eyes will be fixed on Henderson’s wonder horse this season.
Leaning against a stable door, Henderson gazes across the yard with his one good eye and reflects for a moment when asked what lessons he has learned from the horses which have consumed his life. “Don’t ever be surprised,” he eventually says. “I’ve reached a point where everything, good or bad, is possible. You’ve got to be adventurous sometimes but I’m probably quite cautious because you never know what’s round the next corner. There are absolutely no certainties in life or racing. Be prepared for everything.”
