Paul Nicholls 2024/25 National Hunt Season Preview: Five Novice Chasers to follow

• Paul Nicholls five novice chaers to follow for the 2024/25 season

• Inthewaterside and Rubaud are very exciting novice chasers

• Very excited about 4yo Kalif Du Berlais

• Expensive purchase Caldwell Potter is very interesting

The 2024/25 National Hunt season is now on the horizon and Betfair amabassador Paul Nicholls has outlined five novice chasers to keep on side during the campaign. The Ditcheat handler puts forward their targets for the year whilst also going into depth on how they have summered during the off-season.

🏇 Inthewaterside
🏇 Rubaud
🏇 Kalif Du Berlais
🏇 Captain Teague
🏇 Caldwell Potter@PFNicholls has some cracking Novice Chasers to go to war with this campaign! 👀 pic.twitter.com/yTKherFsb1

-- Betfair Racing (@BetfairRacing) October 14, 2024

Inthewaterside

"A dual novice hurdle winner last season, a big strong horse he was always going to need a fence. I'm happy with his schooling."

"I may give him one run in a handicap hurdle just to take the freshness off him before he goes chasing, but he's a hugely exciting noivice chaser."

Rubaud

"A really successful hurdler, I've been looking forward to the day he goes novice chasing. He's done a lot of schooling, he jumps great, he'll be a good two-mile chaser I think.

"I haven't really decided where to start him off, we're perhaps going to look at a hurdle race at Kempton on the 20 October that he won last season as it's quite a valuable race. If that looks winnable we might look at that, if it's extremely hot we might wait for a novice chase at Cheltenham the week afer.

"Ultimately I'd like to think that he'd be good enough to run in something like the Henry VIII Novice Chase at Sandown."

Kalif Du Berlais

"A lovely 4yo, he had a great time for us last season. He got bought after he won his maiden hurdle in France, he's made his debut for us at Kempton at the end of January, won very nicely. He then went for the Adonis Hurdle at Kempton, again he won very nicely.

"He was probably over the top when he won at Aintree but he's had a nice summer out now, he's done very well. Physically for a 4yo he's very forward so I'm dead keen to go novice chaing with him, I don't see any point wasting time over hurdles.

"Whether I start him off on one hurdle race before he's goes chasing we'll see. Harry's (Cobden) still quite keen on him off a mark of 135 in a handicap hurdle but if I found a 0-135 novice handicap chase and he gets his 4yo allowance he'd take some beating in a chase.

"I'm quite excited about him to go chasing, he's a gorgeous big horse."

Captain Teague

"Gorgeous horse. Started off last season novice hurdling winning the Grade 2 Persian War novices' hurdle at Chepstow, and then he won the Grade 1 Challow Hurdle at Christmas at Newbury.

"Lost his way a bit in the second part of the season, we had a few little issues with him, only minor. Got over those now, he's in great shape, he's been jumping well and I can't wait for him to make his debut over fences.

"Haven't really decided between us, I'll have a chat as to whether we go over two and half or three (miles) first time, if we got three we might even go to Exeter on Haldon Gold Cup day for the race Stay Away Fay won last year, and then head off to Sandown. Or we might even start him off in the Rising Stars at Wincanton over two and half the week before.

"So all options open but he's a lovely horse to go novice chasing with."

Caldwell Potter

"A very interesting horse to go novice chasing. We bought him last year in the sales after he won a Grade 1 at Leopardstown, obviously he cost a lot of money for all the boys who had just lost Hermes Allen.

"We didn't run him in the spring, we had a few little problems with his feet which we've sorted now. We've been schooling him quite a lot, he jumps really nicely, he's a really classy horse and I'm glad we didn't run him in the spring in a lot of was as I think it's easier for us to start from scratch from day one.

"He won't be ready until November, I've half pencilled in a little novice chase at Warwick over two and a half miles as his starting point but nothing is set in stone, but he's a really interesting horse for the season."

Sonigino

Although not one of his five to follow, Paul did give a mention to Sonigino as a dark horse to go novice chasing, with Paul saying, "he's a good fun horse, he'll probably win plenty of races away from the very very big meetings, he jumps well, goes on any ground, he'll give us a lot of fun.

Listen to Paul Nicholls Jumps Season Preview with Betfair: What's new for Team Ditcheat, top targets and runners to follow