Following a successful Cheltenham Festival, Nicky Henderson will send a strong group of challengers to the Aintree Festival as he looks to claim his fourth British Champion Trainer title.
After Might Bite followed in the footsteps of Altior and Buveur D’Air and secured a stunning victory in the RSA Chase, Nicky Henderson will have been hoping to end this year’s Cheltenham Festival as the Top Trainer. Sadly, no more winners materialised over the last two-and-a-half days, despite several of his runners putting in excellent performances.
Although he may not have walked away with Top Trainer honours at Cheltenham, Henderson’s festival escapades saw him leapfrog Paul Nicholls at the top of the British Champion Trainer standings and the Seven Barrows maestro is now in pole position to land his first title since 2014.
Nicholls, who could only manage one winner at Cheltenham, hasn’t been a prominent figure in the big spring Festivals for several years now, despite winning the Champion Trainer title in ten of the last eleven years. His triumph over a strong and determined Willie Mullins in the title race last year, will have been his sweetest to date – but with Nicky Henderson confirming that many of his top stars will travel to Aintree and bid for further Festival glory in Merseyside, Nicholls could be left hoping for a miracle to keep the Champion Trainer trophy at Ditcheat.
Cocktails At Dawn will be the only Seven Barrows representative in the Grand National and Henderson himself doesn’t fancy his charges chances of landing the big one. Altior is being saved for a season ending venture to Sandown, but RSA Champion, Might Bite will lead Nicky Henderson’s strong squad of challengers as they head to Aintree.
“In his own way he has put up extraordinary performances at Kempton and Cheltenham,” said Henderson, when he discussed Might Bite and his Aintree Festival plans with the Racing Post.
“At Kempton he was quicker than Thistlecrack was in the King George. They just couldn’t go with him. He was doing the same thing at Cheltenham. It looked like he was going to win in unbelievable style until he made a fool of things.”
“He would certainly have the pace to travel around Aintree, where I would think Whisper will go as well as he won the Aintree Hurdle twice. Top Notch would almost certainly head to the two-and-a-half-miler there.”
Whisper almost took advantage of his stablemate’s wanderings down the home straight at Cheltenham and came within a whisker of snatching the RSA title. Top Notch found Yorkhill too hard to beat in the JLT Novices’ Chase, but he enforced his burgeoning reputation with a strong finish back in second.
Buveur D’Air was the emphatic winner of the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham, landing Henderson a record-breaking seventh victory in that prestigious race. He is likely to come up against Yanworth and Mares’ Hurdle winner, Apple’s Jade in the Aintree Hurdle, but Henderson fancies his charge’s chances of prevailing again over an extended two-and-a-half mile trip.
“It’s the obvious race for Buveur, who seems very well. We wouldn’t want to go too late with him as if the ground dries up it would be no good to him. We had been thinking of upping him in trip for the two-and-a-half-mile novice hurdle at Aintree last year and I do think that trip at that track would be perfect for him.”
Whilst these four superstars are bound to garner plenty of attention, there are sure to be several other Nicky Henderson entrants who slip under the radar at Aintree next month and claim the leading trainer some valuable prize money, as he looks to keep Paul Nicholls at bay and win just his second Champion Trainer title since 1987.
“There’s no point me saying I don’t want to win the title, because of course I would love to be champion again. Rather like in a race, second doesn’t really count for a lot or do much for me, so we’ll give it a go.”
“Paul and I are good mates and we’ll be seeing plenty of each other over the coming weeks. If we’re still hanging around together at Sandown you can be sure that will have been after a good six weeks of entertainment.”
