Nicholls may be forced to skip big races
CHAMPION trainer Paul Nicholls has admitted he might not have any runners in the four feature races at the Cheltenham Festival next month.
Nicholls is in pole position to land his 11th title and leads his closest pursuer Colin Tizzard by more than £300,000.
But while the winners have still flowed, the gaps left by stars like Denman, Kauto Star, Master Minded and Neptune Collonges have not been filled.
Nicholls, 54, has not got an entry in the Champion Hurdle, while Silviniaco Conti, his two-time King George VI Chase winner, will bypass the Gold Cup and not run again until Aintree’s Grand National meeting in April.
Dodging Bullets, Nicholls’s 2015 Queen Mother Champion Chase winner who runs at Newbury on Saturday, has lost his form and is more likely to head down the Festival handicap route in the Grand Annual Chase.
Nicholls has both Ptit Zig and Zarkandar in the Stayers’ Hurdle but both have been well beaten this year by ante-post favourite U now ha time an harry and the trainer yesterday said there was no point running horses at the meeting if they had not got a chance, especially if they can mop up prize-money elsewhere.
Nicholls (below) said: ‘We have not got too many to run in the better grade one races but we will have lot of racing left through March and April.
‘It’s possible we might not have any runners (in the big four Festival races) but I am not losing any sleep over it. If you have not got anything good enough there is no point trying to invent something.’
Politologue is one of the horses Nicholls hopes will be a standard bearer of the future for his Somerset stable. The grey is due to run at Warwick on Saturday before a shot at the JLT Novices’ Chase.
Nicholls rates Politologue one of his best Festival chances along with fellow novice Arpege D’Alene, who will run in the Reynoldstown Novices’ Chase at Ascot on Saturday week before a shot at the four-mile National Hunt Chase.
Nicholls, who has had 114 wins this season and believes he can equal his best ever seasonal total of 155 in 2008-09, can extend his title race lead on Saturday when he runs both JP McManus-owned novice Move with the times, likely mount of Barry Geraghty, and Zubayr (Nick Scholfield) in Newbury’s £155,000 Betfair Hurdle.
Nicholls sees the biggest threat to his title coming from Nicky Henderson, not second-placed Tizzard.
The Lambourn trainer will run his outstanding novice Altior against Dodging Bullets in the Betfair Exchange Chase on Saturday, when Nicholls feels we will see the Gold Cup winner run in the Denman Chase, Tizzardtrained Native River. Nicholls feels he will beat stablemate and favourite Thistlecrack. ‘He is a good solid galloper who has won a Hennessy and Welsh National off top weight,’ he said. ‘That tells me he is going to stay and gallop. He’s tough and that is what you need.’