How the mighty had fallen. A 13-times British champion trainer who had saddled the first home in 46 Festival races including four Gold Cups, six Champion Chases and one Champion Hurdle before Thursday’s card got under way, Paul Nicholls might have been forgiven for wondering if he would ever again welcome one of his charges back into the winners’ enclosure during the annual March festivities at Cheltenham.
Given all his previous successes, masterminded in partnership with the help of household names such as Kauto Star, Denman, Frodon, Big Buck’s and Flagship Uberalles, among others, by his own remarkable standards one of the best trainers in the business had endured a scarcely credible barren spell coming into the marketing confection and orgy of paddywhackery that was St Patrick’s Thursday.
After 18 consecutive years of success at the Festival, Nicholls had somehow failed to send out a winner since 2020 and in Hermes Allen had already seen arguably his leading fancy for this year absolutely trounced in Wednesday’s Ballymore Hurdle. It was a dispiriting and familiar story that summed up his frustrations with Festival life; seeing his horse go off as favourite only to get emphatically beaten in a race where Willie Mullins sent out the first three home.
Just 24 hours later in Thursday’s opener, Stage Star finally ended the drought. Booted home after a fine frontrunning ride by Harry Cobden, he prompted a flurry of exultant fist-pumps and West Country whooping from the horse’s clearly delighted whisperer.
Nicholls has masterminded victory in far more prestigious Festival races but could not have looked more pleased at having finally put one over on the combined forces of Irish raiders sent into battle by Mullins and Gordon Elliott after so long. The Turners Novice Chase may not be the stuff from which racing dreams are made, but Stage Star’s win at least ended something of a nightmare for his relieved trainer as far as this particular meeting is concerned.
It’s not that he’s lost his touch. Far from it, in fact. Nicholls continues to send out winners at a prodigious rate, currently leads the jumps trainers’ championship with winnings of almost £3m this season and before Thursday had saddled 19 Group One winners in England and Ireland since his Cheltenham cold streak began, after Politologue’s victory in the Queen Mother Champion Chase three years ago.
Fakenham 1.00 Weebill 1.40 Mad About Sally 2.20 Nothingtochance 3.00 Le Tueur 3.45 Big Boy Bobby 4.20 Pride Of Hawridge 5.00 Sir Jack Yeats
Doncaster 1.20 Idealdes Villerets 2.00 Big Changes 2.40 Flirtatious Girl 3.15 Son Of The Somme 4.00 Horacio Apple’s 4.40 Couldbeaweapon 5.15 Luckie Seven
Cheltenham 1.30 Blood Destiny 2.10 Filey Bay (nb) 2.50 Letsbeclearboutit 3.30 A Plus Tard (nap) 4.10 Secret Investor 4.50 Impervious 5.30 Iroko
Wolverhampton 4.35 Rivas Rob Roy 5.20 Lilandra 6.00 Miss Sligo 6.30 Jenny Ren 7.00 Open Market 7.30 One Hart 8.00 Dreams Delivered 8.30 Poetic Force
Newcastle 5.05 Rock Chant 5.45 Qaasid 6.15 Carbis Bay 6.45 Spinaround 7.15 Elisheva 7.45 Nelson Gay8.15 Abbey’s Dream
He has, however, regularly remarked on what he sees as the futility of trying to take on horses sent over from Ireland and on Tuesday correctly predicted that Hermes Allen might be bullied into submission by his Celtic rivals. “I’m not just going to waste bullets just to try to beat the Irish,” he said last year. “If I think they are not good enough, I am going to go elsewhere with them and be a bit more selective and run in race we can win. You have to be a bit realistic about it, that’s all.”
If Nicholls’ comments smack of sour grapes, he insists they are not meant to and it is almost certainly fair to say he is just being pragmatic. He has also stressed that, like an elite football manager, it will take time for him to rebuild his squad to a level where they can more regularly give the Irish plunderers a decent game.
“We’ve only got 15 or 16 runners for the whole week and you have to make every one of them count,” he said after Stage Star’s win. “One has now so it is onwards and upwards. We’ve had a great time here over the years and it is hard to get those horses back but we are building them up again. We have got heaps like him to come through and I think the next few years will be positive. It is hard to win here and we haven’t got the numbers the Irish trainers have and we are up against it all the time but we can only do our best.”
With five of his bullets left to fire on the final day of this year’s Festival, the odds suggest the most likely to hit the target is Bravemansgame in the Gold Cup. While those ahead of him in the betting will take some beating and there are doubts over whether or not he will get the trip, his trainer insists the two-time King George VI winner has come on in leaps and bounds over the past 12 months. When it comes to winning the Festival’s most coveted trophy, those leaps and bounds are what it’s all about.
