Paul Nicholls Season Review: Highlights, winners and a cool £2m

Ditcheat's brilliant season in numbers - 94 winners and £2m prize money

We have averaged 20% across the season which is what we have managed for pretty much all of my training career. To get £2m prize money again, and considering the horses we have and the ones we have lost, we have done very well.

We are building a strong team for next season. Bring it on, I say, because you can only improve each year. 

No Drama's Challow win was season highlight 

Winning a Grade 1 race is always one of the highlights of any season so No Drama This End's victory in the Challow was the best moment of this campaign. We have won it so many times with horses who turned out to be fantastic chasers so for No Drama to win that was really good.

Tutti Quanti winning was a nice day too. We are building a strong team with some lovely horses for the future and that is what we want.

No Drama was always crying out for three miles and, had we run him in a three mile race at the Cheltenham Festival when the ground was slower that it was for his race on the Wednesday, it might have been a different story for him there. But it is easy to look back and say what you would have done differently.

Cheltenham was No Drama's only blip. He won four from five this season, including a Grade 1 and a Grade 2, and had a great season for a novice who was always going to be a chaser. It was good this week to see him win around Perth this week, where that is a sharp enough track for him, and stay on as strong as he did. He'll have a nice break now and we cannot wait to see him next season. 

I'm proud of phenomenal Skelton but still like to put him in his place 

In my mind, Dan Skelton was always going to win Champion Trainer. The man I call "mini me" has had a phenomenal season which will be hard to follow. It is incredible to see the huge number of horses that Dan has built up to run. He has a good team and deserves his trophy. I'm looking forward to presenting it to him and shaking his hand tomorrow. It will be a special moment for both of us, although I would rather he were presenting the trophy to me.

He is going to be hard to beat next season. I can't see anyone in the UK at the moment who can match him with the sheer number of horses he is training. I think he's had 1000 runners. If he improves his quality even more he will be even more potent, a force to reckon with for a long time, and will have his sights set on my record of 14 titles and Martin Pipe's of 15 but that's a long way off.

No Drama This End beat Dan's horse the other day and it is nice to put him in his place from time to time. But it is getting harder to do. 

Excited about Isaac Des Obeaux next season 

I'm really excited about Isaac Des Obeaux for next season. We seem to have found the key to him, he wants a marathon trip and was very unlucky last week at Ayr. He was travelling well going to the fourth last and, if he had winged that instead of making an horrific mistake, he would have gone close to winning. He still got back in it and finished fourth.

We want to see a bit of improvement physically from him next season and will aim him at the Welsh National this side of Christmas. Aintree will be our number one target for him. It is really exciting to have a good strong stayer who can keep improving.

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