Facing up to frustrations
The trainers’ title might be out of reach, but Paul Nicholls is still bringing a strong team to the Scottish Grand National, hoping to repeat last year’s success
IF the face is a picture of the mind, Paul Nicholls gave two vivid images a decade apart. In 2005, Nicholls was the young pretender to Martin Pipe’s hegemony of the trainers’ title but needed Cornish Rebel to win the Coral Scottish Grand National to keep him in contention.
As Cornish Rebel led from the last fence, Nicholls, watching in front of the grandstand, began riding a finish almost as vigorous as the one Ruby Walsh was employing. He was the sort of complex character Auguste Rodin could have used as a stand-in if the other lad had not been available to pose for The Thinker statue.
Having got in front, Cornish Rebel pricked his ears thinking he had won and burst Nicholls’ dreams, being chinned in the final strides by Joes Edge who won by a short head.
That delivered a knockout blow to Nicholls’ title hopes – and it showed, as he ran through most of the human emotions from hope to despair in the time it took a horse to run a 100 yards.
“Yeah,” he said with a pause for reflection and understatement. “That was a bit disappointing.”
Last year, Nicholls won his 10th trainers’ championship, helped by Vicente winning the Scottish National, and this time his face was an explosion of elation.
Only one man has interrupted Nicholls’ domination since he took the title from the similarly dominant Pipe and that was Nicky Henderson in 2012-13. Henderson went into this season’s Cheltenham Festival around £500,000 down but emerged about £150,000 in front and Nicholls was left playing catch-up. However, by the time the dust settled after the Grand National meeting at Aintree last week, he found himself more than double that. However, Nicholls has conceded that he cannot realistically catch Henderson.
“I’d have to win everything worth winning between now and the end of the season, and Nicky win nothing, and that’s not going to happen,” he said.
But that does not mean putting the shutters up and Nicholls will take a strong team to Ayr once more headed by three runners in the National – Vicente, Arpege D’Alene and Vivaldi Collonges – for a race that he first won with Belmont King in 1997.
“I said to the owners of Arpege D’Alene that there was one race for this horse and that’s the Scottish National,” Nicholls said. “And I’ve had his sights on that all season.
“He ran well at Cheltenham [in the National Hunt Chase], like Vicente did last year, and I think he’s an ideal horse for this race. It’s a good race for novices as Vicente showed last year.
“Vicente didn’t get very far at Aintree [when he fell at the first in the National] and if you’re going to fall it’s just as well to fall at the first as the 21st. So he’s fresh and I’m looking forward to running him. He’s on the same sort of mark as when he won last year.
“Vivaldi Collonges won at Ayr last year on Scottish National day. He loves good ground – he had a bit of a rough time in the winter when the ground was bottomless – he’s had a small wind operation since his last run and we’re hopeful that he can come back to form. So we have three nice chances.”
The chances of Nicholls sitting quietly if one of them is in contention are somewhere between slim and none – and slim is the rank outsider. He prowls like a football manager on the touchline, kicking every ball.
“You have to be passionate about it,” he said and already he is quietly planning for next season.
This one may not bring the championship title but Nicholls is likely to break his personal record for winners in season and has surpassed £2 million in prize-money for the 15th consecutive time, but with the relatively small return of only two Grade One winners.
The missing ingredients are the successors to Kauto Star, Denman, Master Minded and Big Bucks. The problem is that even spending big bucks is no guarantee to finding them and Nicholls must keep getting the most out of what he has, and a 25 per cent strike-rate says he is doing just that.
“Alex Ferguson was saying to me at Aintree that it was impossible to win the Premier League every year and it all just depends on the players you have. If you don’t have the right players in the team at a particular time, you’re not going to do as well and that’s where we are. We maximise what we have but we need a few more Grade One horses, and it might take a couple of years. I’ve been very lucky to have had them before and I’m sure they’ll come along again.”
On the face of it, few would doubt that.