Equinties - Nicholls yard day

Gm Equinauts

It’s quite safe to say public racecourse gallops have been a total disaster for Hendo, Nico and the champ, CONSTITUTION HILL,

but fair play to them, they’re all out again this morning for their final bits of Festival prep.

AND BOY DID HE LOOK THE TRUE MONSTER HE IS!

Next stop, the Champion Hurdle! Choo-Choo!

Let’s dive in.

HEADINE ROUND UP

A BETTING MAN

One winner. That’s all it would take for Paul Nicholls to walk away from this year’s Cheltenham Festival with his head held high.

Hell, a second or a third would probably have the 14-time champion British jumps trainer smiling, and funnily enough, Nicholls would be the first to admit this. He is the king of optimism when it comes to his own horses, so when he admits that his team is a bit below par, you know that things aren’t great in Ditcheat. But Paul does have chances of winners across the week, and the British media got to see some of them yesterday at his annual pre-Cheltenham Festival media day.

JUBILEE ALPHA and JUST A ROSE, his two darts at the Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle, are still his best chances, and this was hammered home yesterday.

And yet, when pushed for a definite number one in the race, Nicholls sided with JUBILEE ALPHA due to her experience compared to JUST A ROSE’s one run.
That makes sense. JUBILEE ALPHA finished second in a Grade 2 bumper, won a Listed race at Taunton, and beat a subsequent winner at Windsor in January. She has a nice profile, but she has the unenviable task of taking on our big fancy MAUGHREEN.

So, who else does Nicholls like from his Cheltenham team? It’s fair to say that GINNY’S DESTINY is well-handicapped and will win a nice handicap soon.

By soon, we either mean the Plate at the Festival or the Coral Gold Cup next season. Nicholls wants to run him over three miles, but he doesn’t want to take on the Ultima yet. Fair enough. He’ll either run well next month despite being out of form this season, or he’ll bomb out and lose a few extra pounds for a potential Coral Gold Cup tilt next season.

KABRAL DU MATHAN was the next mentioned for the County Hurdle. He’s a lovely improver, but he has hit 139 now and the hustle and bustle of a County Hurdle can be tough to take on the chin.

He’d probably prefer the better ground of a Festival, but he needs to prove he has at least 7lbs up his sleeve on his 139 official rating. He could well do so, though chasing will be for him next season.

CALDWELL POTTER was mentioned for the Jack Richards, but the horse that caught a bit of traction online was Nicholls’ ante-post bet on SHEARER for the Hunters’ Chase.

It’s mainly a sentimental bet because of his daughter, Olive, but he is now 16/1 and he was a former-139-rated chaser before a few setbacks.

A horse in the high 130s can win a Hunters’ Chase if running to that mark, and Nicholls seems optimistic of a huge run from SHEARER. He’s also not old, he’s only nine, and he won nicely off 137 in June 2023 so proves interesting.

FIVE CHANCES

It’s a double billing of Nicholls news in this edition of the newsletter as there was a bit of chat about his Aintree Grand National team yesterday.

We’ve spent plenty of time talking about BRAVEMANSGAME, and even the boss of Manor Farm Stables thinks there are stamina queries, but we haven’t given much airtime to his main contender KANDOO KID.

KANDOO KID won the Coral Gold Cup in November, something that had been a long-term plan from the team, on his first start of the season which was some effort considering all of Nicholls’ horses were running like drains at the start of the campaign.

The form has worked out well with HENRY’S FRIEND and VICTTORINO, and BROADWAY BOY could go and frank the form in the Ultima if he runs to this number.
According to Nicholls, his two big targets for this season were the Coral Gold Cup and the National.

Well, one is ticked off, and he was as bullish as one could be heading into a National, as he said: "I'd like to think Kandoo Kid is probably our best chance but who knows as we've got five nice horses.

“Harry [Cobden] will ride Kandoo Kid, which says it all, he's a Coral Gold Cup winner and jumped fantastic around Aintree last year.

"He's entered on Saturday at Newbury over two and a half miles and I'd probably let him run now the ground is soft. It's just a sharpener, we're better off running in a £100,000 race than going for a gallop. The weekend will be all about getting a run into him."

He’s running this Saturday to blow the cobwebs off, but with five contenders in this year’s Nash, Nicholls would look to have at least three live chances of winning the race with BRAVEMANSGAME, THREEUNDERTHRUFIVE, and, his main hope, KANDOO KID.

CHANGE NEEDED

Dan Skelton went on Luck On Sunday a few weeks ago and threw up the old ‘you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs’ analogy.

Yes, that phrase is used often, but it doesn’t happen enough in our sport because we have so many invested parties involved. Decisions never get made because they annoy at least one group, and we emphasise ‘at least’.

So, where can we start to make changes in order to improve specifically jumps racing in the UK.

Well, first off - the idiots shaking their heads at student days are clueless. If you honestly think more people going racing is a bad thing, then you backward thinking is part of the problem.

We only bring this up because Nick Luck was talking about it on his Luck On Sunday show and we cannot believe there are people who think student days are a negative.

On to other ideas…

How about the gap between Cheltenham and Aintree?

This year, by the time the Martin Pipe concludes festivities in Gloucestershire, fans will have to wait just 20 days for the jump racing carnival to head to Merseyside for the Aintree Grand National Festival.

As a result, you will see more horses either not at Aintree or not at Cheltenham this season. That is a fact.

Trainers like Paul Nicholls, who openly said he would do this yesterday, are going to keep horses back for Aintree so they can win easier Grade 1s on a fairer track. Sure, why not, that’s in your best interests. But, ultimately, that mindset and planning detracts from either one of the two big spring jumps festivals in the UK, and the fans, bookmakers, and promoters miss out.

Irish horses, however, can pitch up to Cheltenham and then roll on to Punchestown a month and a half later without much of a worry, Yes, some come over to Aintree usually, and even horses like IL ETAIT TEMPS try to do all three, but you probably won’t see many Irish horses at Aintree this season if they have run at Cheltenham.

So, why not move Aintree back? Few British-trained runners head over to Punchestown these days, and if Irish-trained runners want to avoid the barrage of Willie Mullins-trained horses they can come over to Liverpool instead.

Moving Aintree back gives Cheltenham horses more chance of running again that season at a major festival which in turn helps promote the sport to a wider audience because the more ‘casual’ viewer gets to see better clashes more regularly.

Think about the Flat calendar. Horses get to run at Newmarket, York, Ascot, Goodwood, York, and Ascot again because the Flat programme over here is in good shape.

Anyway, we bring this up because there was more fuel to add to the fire of this debate from Donald McCain.

He said: "I don't think the season-end, as it is, works at all. It doesn't impress in the slightest. Would the Grand National being the last race of the season be a real highlight? Absolutely it would.

"Me being me, and fond of Aintree, I'd solve it by saying move Cheltenham earlier, but that's not going to happen. Could Aintree become the end-of-season highlight? Absolutely it could."

Does more change need to happen? We think so, and this could be the first area to target to create more competitive, thus big spectacles.

RISK ON

A tools down yesterday for this section, there were some obvious results we kicked ourself over. If nothing really took our fancy then, today looks even worse with just two faves lazily catching our eye we’ll bet with small stakes:

14.45 JUMPER MADRIK

Kicked ourselves when allowing this lad to win on chase debut without our money (we kick ourselves a lot) but the massive drift put us off. he was the best bred in the race then and he’s the best bred for the job in the race today and the step up will be sure to suit. There is juice in his mark and the step up will find it… we trust! Backing the drift at even money.

16.15 WALLACE OLINGER

An ex-Robcour horse, he was bred and bought to be good - he’s a half to BOB OLINGER. Now, he’s not as good as him but he has run well in the point to point sphere. This is his first run under rules as a Hunter Chaser and can go well against fairly moderate opposition. He carries effectively top weight as jockey Dale Peters (50% sr at track) takes the least weight off. He’s the best bred, will love the ground and can prove the class act at 6/5.

Singles (stronger on WALLACE), small double and even smaller treble with the our first Cheltenham fancy MAUGHREEN paying 18/1.

SUBSCRIBE BELOW TO ACCESS ALL OF CHELTENHAM CONTENT!

Become a paying subscriber of Premium to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content.

Already a paying subscriber? Sign In.

A subscription gets you:

• • The weekender edition (Mon-Fri still free)
• • The weekends best bets
• • That warm fuzzy feeling inside knowing the intern gets fed
• • Only £1 a week!