Latest News / Timeform / 05 November 2011 / 5

Paul Nicholls celebrated his 2,000th British and Irish winner as a trainer when Kauto Stone (a half-brother to Kauto Star) recorded an easy success at Down Royal on Saturday. Timeform reflect on Nicholls' career so far....

Paul Nicholls has come a long way since he took over at Manor Farm Stables, Ditcheat, in the 1991/2 season 'with eight horses and just £10,000 in my pocket.'

Having started out as a jockey (his 100+ wins included two Hennessys, a Welsh National and an Irish Gold Cup), Nicholls was assistant trainer to David Barons when the stable's Seagram won the 1991 National before taking over the licence himself.

Nicholls' first success came with Olveston, who was owned by his parents. Olveston was sent off the 9/4 favourite in a 2m handicap chase at Hereford on December 20 1991 and ran out a two-length winner. Nicholls completed the 1991/2 season with 12 winners from 106 starts, a promising total and a sign of things to come.

The ill-fated See More Indians, a prolific performer whose wins included two Grade 1 novices during his only season over fences, was the first major purchase made in his new career by Nicholls for his landlord Paul Barber after taking over at Ditcheat.

Paul Barber has been the major backer of the yard, owning such as Cheltenham Gold Cup and dual King George winner See More Business and Queen Mother Champion Chase winner Call Equiname, both of whom, along with Arkle winner Flagship Uberalles, were part of a splendid Cheltenham Festival for the stable in 2009.

That 1998/9 season proved something of a benchmark for Nicholls, as he also secured over 100 wins in a campaign for the first time and amassed over a million pounds in prize money, thanks in no small part to that Cheltenham haul.

In the years that followed, Nicholls began to recruit an increasing number of French-bred jumpers to Manor Farm. The likes of Armaturk, Le Roi Miguel and Azertyuiop proved the most successful of the early imports, with the last-named winning the 2003 renewal of the Arkle Chase before going on to defeat Moscow Flyer in the following season's Champion Chase, while in 2004 he began training Kauto Star for Clive Smith, in a move that would shape the history of jumps racing, though it almost never happened....

Clive Smith had horses with Martin Pipe before switching his string, including Royal Auclair, to Nicholls. He gave Nicholls a budget of £500,000 to buy Garde Champetre, whom the trainer was keen to retain when the Million In Mind Partnership sent him to the Doncaster Sales in 2004. The gelding broke the record for a jumper at auction, J.P. McManus outbidding Smith and others to secure him for 530,000 guineas.

Smith instead spent the money on a young French hurdler named Kauto Star, who was purchased privately for a reported €400,000 through bloodstock agent Anthony Bromley.

Kauto Star made a most impressive winning British debut at Newbury in December 2004, just over a month after Nicholls had recorded his 1000th winner under rules as Noble Action landed a Folkestone bumper, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Although Kauto suffered an injury on his next start, in controversial circumstances in a novice chase at Exeter (Ruby Walsh remounted Kauto Star after falling when clear at the second last and the horse was later found to have suffered a small fracture to his near hind), and had to miss the rest of the 2004/5 season, Nicholls finished up with an impressive 153 winners, but he was still £75,000 shy of Martin Pipe in the Trainers' Championship.

The following season, with an even stronger fleet of horses, Nicholls went on to land his first Trainers' Championship, finally overhauling Martin Pipe having finished runner-up to him in the previous seven seasons. Kauto Star landed the Tingle Creek and started favourite for the Champion Chase at Cheltenham, but while that race ended in disappointment for the up-and-coming stable star, the season as a whole was a great success, with Nicholls recording 148 winners and prize money of just over £2.4m.

Nicholls also achieved another milestone in that season, becoming the first trainer in Britain to saddle six winners at one meeting, at Wincanton on January 21.

Kauto Star went through the 2006/7 season unbeaten, culminating in a Gold Cup win at Cheltenham, but that particular Festival also saw another potential star emerge in the shape of Denman, who demolished a top-class field as he ran away with the Royal & SunAlliance Chase, taking his career record to ten wins from eleven starts.

The most eagerly anticipated Gold Cup of modern times in 2008 brought with it a huge publicity drive as the two stablemates who dominated the chasing scene clashed for the first time. In the event Denman, who had put up an unbelievable weight-carrying performance in the Hennessy at Newbury, returned the best Gold Cup performance in over 10 years as he galloped his rivals into submission, with Nicholls recording a 1-2-3 courtesy of Kauto Star in second and Neptunes Collonges in third, not quite Michael Dickinson's 'Famous Five' of 1983 but a remarkable feat nonetheless.

The same Festival was also memorable for the performance of another of Nicholls' French imports, Master Minded, who took the Champion Chase by storm, running 19 lengths clear of the previous year's winner Voy Por Ustedes and announcing himself as the dominant two-mile chaser for the seasons to come.

The 2007/8 season ranks as Nicholls' most impressive, as he once again ran away with the Trainer's Championship after amassing 151 winners and over £3.5m in prize money, a current National Hunt record.

In the following season Nicholls secured no fewer than 12 Grade 1 victories, as Master Minded gained back-to-back Champion Chases and Kauto Star created history in becoming the first horse ever to reclaim the Gold Cup, producing an outstanding performance which was arguably the best since the days of Arkle.

That season also saw a significant move with a horse that would go on to fly the flag for the stable in the coming seasons, as the decision was made to revert Big Buck's to hurdling. Big Buck's would go on to become the dominant force in the staying division over hurdles, winning each of his next 12 starts including three consecutive World Hurdles at the Cheltenham Festival.

Nicholls has continued to go from strength to strength, winning 20 Grade 1s in the last two seasons including Denman's second Hennessy under top weight and Kauto's record-breaking fourth King George, while the 2010/11 season saw some talented younger horses emerge to take over from the aging stable stalwarts, with Zarkandar and Al Ferof both securing Grade 1 novice wins at the Cheltenham Festival.

All in all, Nicholls has had a truly remarkable career so far and shows no signs of stopping. He has reached the 2,000 winner milestone quicker than Martin Pipe and has trained some of the best horses of the modern jumps era, and arguably of all-time.

Nicholls has a new challenger to contend with as he seeks to add a sixth straight Trainers' Championship, in the shape of Gold Cup winning trainer Nicky Henderson, but there's no doubt that Nicholls will be all out to achieve his next target, breaking fifteen-times Champion Trainer Pipe's all-time jumps winners record of 4,182.

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1. Barry from Warwick | 06 November 2011

   Congratulations on reaching your '2000'. A brilliant achievement and how appropriate that it was achieved by Kauto Star's half brother!!I have enjoyed many of your stables memorable successes over the years and appreciate you sharing your stable news and advice with the wider racing public.

   Barry... a fan and supporter of National Hunt racing

2. brian | 06 November 2011

   Congratulations to Paul and his team - good day on Saturday and reaching 2000 winners - money in the pocket for the forthcoming Cheltenham meeting!!

3. Paul | 06 November 2011

   I would also like to add my appreciation to Paul for sharing his stable news with Betfair. I genuinely believe that he is an honest man who admits when he gets things wrong. I look forward to watching the next 1000...

   Paul of theracinghorse

4. paul gardner | 08 November 2011

   i picked paul nicholls out as a top trainer some years ago when i had to admit he was as good as my favourite
   nicky henderson.i have been a fan of jump
   racing since the age of five as i lived half a mile from cheltenham race course all i ever wanted to be was a jump jockey
   but my mum would not have it io dangerous
   i road hourses for over 20 years still like to have a go now.some you win some you loose.love for jump racing .
   paul gardner 74 years old now

5. patrick oneill | 10 November 2011

   thanks paul for all your openess much spondulux in pocket

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