Watch Paul Nicholls' Ditcheat Diaries: Weekend review and thoughts on Trainers Championship

• A winner and a runner-up for Paul on Scottish Grand National day

• Kabral Du Mathan is an exciting novice chaser for next season

• Paul tells us why he hopes it rains as he closes in on 100 winners

Watch Paul Nicholls' Ditcheat Diaries

💬 Ayr reflections
💯 Chasing a century
🏆 Trainers title battle@PFNicholls on the weekend that was with @BetfairBarry. pic.twitter.com/FkCBdxDuEo

-- Betfair Racing (@BetfairRacing) April 14, 2025

It was a relatively quiet weekend for Paul Nicholls who had just a handful of runners including Quebecois who won the handicap hurdle at Ayr on Scottish Grand National day.

Paul says, "I love going up to Ayr where they do a fantastic job with the ground. Quebecois won very very nicely which is good as it's always nice to have a winner there."

Kabral Du Mathan an exciting prospect for next season

Quebecois was a welcome winner for Paul as earlier in the afternoon he finished a neck second in the Scottish Champion Hurdle with Kabral Du Mathan.

Paul says, "He ran very well, just a bit of a shame they took the second last hurdle out really because one of his strengths is his jumping. He stayed on very strong and ran very well.

"He's going to be an awesome chaser next season.

"But yes, love going up to Ayr, obviously it was a highlight Harry (Cobden) winning the Scottish Grand National, so yes, good weekend by team Ditcheat up there."

Mullins in pole position to win Trainers Championship

That Scottish National win for Harry was also good news for Willie Mullins who had the first and second in the race, meaning there's nothing between him and Dan Skelton in the race to become Champion Trainer this season.

There's a decent meeting at Plumpton this Easter weekend and Mullins has 11 entered in one of the races already, which brought a smile to Paul's face. He commented, "On Sunday and Monday there's a big meeting at Plumpton.

"There's a £75,000 handicap hurdle Sunday and a £100,000 two mile chase on the Monday and I just looked at the entries for the 2m handicap hurdle on the Sunday and I see Willie has got 11 entered, so I had a smile to myself.

"We've got to try and support Dan in some way if we can and I'm going to run Afadil who would have a bit of a squeak. But yes, obviously Willie having 11 entered shows his intent so Dan is up against it sadly."

Dry spell causing some minor problems

The recent dry spell in the UK has already caused Wincanton and Taunton to cancel their meetings this week and Paul says it's a bit of a challenge at the moment.

Paul says, "Wincanton ran out of water and it was a bit quick. Taunton's the same, that was on this week but that's been abandoned so we could do with the rain that is forecast.

"I need another six winners in the next fortnight to get the 100 up and those little meetings help you on your way so losing those is not great. But across the board we want some rain, there's some good racing this weekend and next week so let's hope it does rain."

This conversation has been condensed so watch Ditcheat Diaries to hear Paul Nicholls' full comments and read his exclusive Betfair column on Friday for a preview of this weekend's runners.

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