NICHOLLS RETIRES
DAVID ‘Dandy’ Nicholls has quit as a trainer days after winning a near £100,000 race in Qatar with his final runner.
Ex-jockey Nicholls, 60, justifiably earned a reputation as a wizard with sprinters. Every major handicap over five and six furlongs had a host of Nicholls runners. Some of them went on to even greater things and his big-race successes included Group One victories in the Nunthorpe (Bahamian Pirate, Ya Malak), July Cup (Continent), Haydock Sprint Cup (Regal Parade) and Prix de l’Abbaye (Continent). In the handicap sphere he won the Ayr Gold Cup six times in 11 seasons from 2000 to 2010. Nicholls, inset, was also closely associated wth the success of pioneering lady jockey Alex Greaves, then his wife, who became the first female rider to win a Group One in Britain when Ya Malak dead-heated with Coastal Bluff in the 1997 Nunthorpe at York’s Ebor meeting. The pugnacious Nicholls has found winners harder to come by in recent seasons at his Yorkshire yard and he cited ‘financial problems’ as his reason for retiring.
Sovereign Debt’s victory in a Group Two race in Doha on February 24 was the last of more than 1,300 winners he sent out.
He tweeted: “Sovereign Debt was our last runner from Tall Trees, as due to financial problems we have had to cease training. “It was nice to go out on a high during what has been a difficult time and I’d like to thank all our owners that have supported us.”
Nicholls faces trial in the summer on two charges of sexual assault, which he strenuously denies. ORAB HAVLIN has failed to overturn the six-month ban he got for testing positive for a number of banned substances at Saint-Cloud last October.
John Gosden’s stable jockey will be out of action until September 21 if the suspension is rubber-stamped, as expected, by the BHA.