Nicky Henderson reveals his Cheltenham team but not his hand
'No news is good news’ may not work for newspapers but, a day after Thistlecrack was ruled out of the Gold Cup - highlighting the racehorse’s capacity to injure itself - Nicky Henderson was pleased to begin his annual pre-Cheltenham press morning by announcing, with some relief: “No news”.
The proverb is much sought after by trainers in the run up to the festival, but even getting his three Champion Hurdle runners to pose together for photographers with “kicker” Buveur D’Air in the middle is fraught with risk.
After sympathising with both Colin Tizzard and Willie Mullins, a trainer who has been hit even harder by injuries this season, Henderson added: “You can understand why everyone gets so flustered at this time of year.”
Less than three weeks out from this year’s festival, Henderson, whose 55 winners at the meeting are more than any other trainer, has assembled yet another formidable team.
His squad for the opening day is particularly strong; Buveur D’Air, the ante-post favourite, Brain Power and My Tent Or Yours in the Stan James Champion Hurdle, Altior in the Arkle, and two or three from Beyond Conceit, Charli Parcs and Consul de Thaix in the Supreme Novices Hurdle. Indeed he is only 20-1 to have three on the board after the first four races.
When it was put to him that Paul Nicholls had said, somewhat enviously, that the best team this year was being gathered at Seven Barrows,Henderson said he was not falling for the champion trainer’s mind games. “We all know Paul’s psychology,” he said laughing. “The best way to take the pressure off is to put it on someone else. Thanks.”
Then, I think without realising it, he proceeded to pass the pressure baton on to Mullins who “will be there in droves with lorry loads of runners. We’ll start the first race as normal – with Willie’s as favourite!”
As always these mornings are as much about reading between the lines as anything else. Henderson would not be drawn on which was his best chance in the Champion Hurdle describing it as a “ground situation”; softer going will suit Buveur D’Air more than Brain Power and My Tent Or Yours and vice versa.
But if the length of time he spoke about each horse was any sort of measure, then Brain Power should be favourite. “He has a very high cruising speed and it looks like he’ll get a strong gallop with The New One and Petit Mouchoir in the race and, of course, Buveur D’Air beat Petit Mouchoir twice last year so knows where he lives.”
“We’ve seen plenty of hurdlers, however, who have come through handicaps and fall flat at the top level. It’s a big gap but David Mullins knows him well and he tanks through his races when they haven’t been hanging around.
“He’s grown up mentally. He wasn’t top of last season’s novice pack but [schooling over fences in the autumn] he was jumping good but working excellently and we felt he had more to give over hurdles. “None of them would be that far off our former champions. It’s an open year, a good one to have three in it with a chance. If My Tent Or Yours turned up in the same form as last year he wouldn’t be far away either.”
Last year Henderson was more confident about Altior winning than any runner he had ever had at the meeting. “He was my absolute banker,” he said. “On paper he is again, but it is a novice chase around Cheltenham.
“He is creeping up the ladder but he’s got to come out and do what he did at Newbury in the Arkle. If that happens then you can compare him to Sprinter Sacre, but you wouldn’t think it possible to put away one two mile Champion and replace it with another.”
Not a fan of the bumper, the presence of a Henderson runner there, Daphne du Clos, should be regarded as particularly favourable. “It’s a brutally hard race for horses which aren’t ready for it,” he said. “History says it’s not possible for a four-year-old mare to win it. But she is different.” On a morning of metaphorical nods and winks that appeared to be both.
