Harry Derham, the pupil assistant to his uncle, Paul Nicholls, at the champion trainer’s Somerset stable, has admitted the form of the yard’s recent runners is a cause for concern and that “we are all doing our absolute best to make sure the horses will return to form before long”.
Nicholls has a strike-rate of only 10% in December, well below his 24% success rate in the same month last year, and his last 22 runners have been beaten. The stable’s most high-profile setbacks have been the failure of Silviniaco Conti to run to form in his attempt to complete a hat-trick of wins in the King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day, and a dismal run by Favorito Buck’s, the 11-8 favourite, in a juvenile hurdle there the next day. Both horses were pulled up in the home straight.
“Sadly [there] hasn’t been a great deal of Christmas cheer at Ditcheat,” Derham said on Monday in his blog on the stable’s website.
“For reasons we haven’t yet found, the majority of our horses are performing at a level lower than expected, something which is giving us plenty to ponder.
“The frustrating thing is that although some are running below par, as a group they look fantastic and nothing obvious is coming to light. On the back of a season beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, things were always going to be difficult to reproduce, but rest assured we are all doing our absolute best to make sure the horses will return to form before long.”
Even though he is about £200,000 short of his prize money total at the same stage last year, Nicholls is still the only trainer to have passed £1m this season. He is favourite at 1-3 to retain his trainers’ title but Nicky Henderson and in particular Ireland’s champion, Willie Mullins, may start to attract attention in the market.
Mullins is currently 20th in the overall list with £238,000 and an 8-1 chance for the title with several bookmakers, but has few runners in Britain before the Cheltenham Festival. His team for the sport’s showpiece meeting promises to be just as strong as the one that earned £650,000 in win prize money alone last season and he is expected to saddle several fancied runners in the Gold Cup, which has a first prize of nearly £400,000.
Richard Fahey equalled Richard Hannon Sr’s record of 235 winners in a calendar year with a double at Lingfield on Monday and expects to have several chances to set a new mark at 2015’s four remaining meetings on the Flat.
Fahey’s two winners at Lingfield were both ridden by Tony Hamilton, who reached 100 winners in a calendar year for the first time when Gabrial The Hero held the late challenge of Cotton Club by a neck in a two-mile handicap. He then moved Fahey on to his joint-record total when Luis Vaz De Torres took the final race on the card.
“It’s grand,” Fahey said. “I can’t believe it. It’s a huge amount of winners but I’ve got a good team behind me. Tony’s reached 100 winners, so it’s a good day for everybody.
“It would be great if we could beat the record. We’ll be trying anyway.”
Fahey has three runners at Southwell’s meeting on Tuesday, including Mitre Peak and Spirit Of Zeb, the early favourites for the card’s seven-furlong maiden at 1.40 and five-furlong handicap at 3.20 respectively.
He also has five horses entered on Wednesday at Lingfield and Wolverhampton, and eight more among the possible runners at Lingfield on New Year’s Eve.
Haydock’s jumps card on Wednesday will need to pass a precautionary inspection at 7am, with heavy showers forecast for the area. Officials were happy with the condition of the track on Monday afternoon, however, despite 60mm of rainfall since Christmas Day.
