Paul Nicholls is back on top of the trainers’ table after a four-timer here on Sunday that must count as an excellent early omen as he sets out to win an 11th championship. This fixture has not been reliably productive for the Somerset man in recent seasons but everything was rolling his way this time and his profit included the winnings from a rare bet, £50 each-way at 12-1 on Art Mauresque, who may now be aimed at next month’s BetVictor Gold Cup at Cheltenham.
With the core jumps season looming, this can be a confusing and frustrating time for jumps trainers. “No matter what you’re thinking, you don’t really know what’s ready and what’s not,” Nicholls said but he was sufficiently confident of Art Mauresque to produce his own money when he saw how little the bookmakers thought of his chance in this handicap chase, his first run since May.
“I said to Johnny [De La Hey, owner], ‘I’m missing a trick here, he should not be 12-1’. Because he’s been running really well and he’s a better horse this year. I really fancied him. He travelled like a legend.”
Unexpectedly left in front three out when the leader folded quickly, Art Mauresque idled and held on by a mere head from the strong-finishing Double Shuffle. The pair could meet again in the Cheltenham handicap that, for many, marks the real start of each winter’s jump racing, though Nicholls also mentioned Aintree’s Old Roan Chase as a possible target.
His four winners here salted away more than £50,000 in prize money and took him almost to £300,000 for the season, easily enough to carry him past David Pipe and Charlie Longsdon and into a clear lead in the table. Taking into account the recent news of Willie Mullins losing 60 Michael O’Leary-owned horses, Nicholls’ chances of retaining his crown are looking much brighter than they did a month ago.
“They are forward and they’re all really well, which is good,” he said. “But I think we all need to take a pull after today until it rains. There’s no rain forecast.” Quickening ground here was part of the reason for 13 non-runners, including the horse who would have been the star attraction, Sire De Grugy, withdrawn by Gary Moore as the runners left the paddock for the first race.
Nicholls felt the surface here was perfectly safe: “At the end of the day, I’d rather run now when it’s good ground than I would in the winter when it’s a foot deep.” But with a dry week in prospect, there is unlikely to be any more jump racing of significance until Cheltenham’s first card a week on Friday.
That fixture may take on even greater importance because Colin Tizzard said he may choose to send Thistlecrack there for his chasing debut. Thistlecrack is the 7-1 Gold Cup favourite despite not having jumped a fence in public and the interest when he finally does so will be intense. Tizzard had hoped to run him here but wanted more juice in the ground.
Nicholls’s other three winners included a battling success in the Persian War with El Bandit, who had been most disappointing until “getting his head right” in the spring. “He just needed time,” the trainer reflected, “and I think he could end up anywhere. He’s one of them, you know. You just wouldn’t know what he could do.” Staying hurdle races of quality are now on the agenda.
Rebecca Curtis was almost as visibly satisfied as Nicholls with the weekend’s action, her three winners over the two days here proving her stable is in a much better place than at any time in the past season. The Pembrokeshire trainer appeared baffled and dismayed by her charges for much of last winter but whatever was ailing them now seems a thing of the past and in Definite Outcome, who scored here, she has an RSA Chase prospect.
“It’s been a great start,” she said. “We’ve gone back to our own homegrown haylage [feed], which we always did a few seasons back. You just know when your horses are right. I hope they stay that way.
“I don’t know that we had an awful season last year, we still had a few nice winners. I don’t know what it was. Every stable has the odd blip, don’t they?”
