Article about Nicholls "treatment" of Thomas makes interesting reading.
Greg Wood
The Guardian, Tuesday 3 February 2009
The moment when Sam Thomas crossed the line on Denman in last year's Gold Cup was the finest of his career, and no one can ever take that away from him. His partnership with Denman, however, could now be history, and while his loss of the ride might be seen as just business as usual in the more ruthless world of the Flat, it will leave a bitter taste for many jumps fans, who like to think National Hunt is more sporting.
Not just the fact of it, either, but the manner too. One point on which every racing fan will agree is that Paul Nicholls is an outstanding trainer of racehorses, whose rise to the top of his profession was so irresistible that in the end even Martin Pipe decided to call it a day. When it comes to people, though, his touch is not nearly so certain.
Nicholls appears to have been undermining Thomas's position as his No2 jockey for several months, and he has not even been particularly subtle about it. He has criticised the rider publicly on a number of occasions, most recently after the victory of Big Buck's in the Cleeve Hurdle, when he said he had "no doubt" that the same horse would have won the Hennessy Gold Cup had Walsh, rather than Thomas, been in the saddle.
Perhaps the lowest point in the whole process was an early one, when a bizarre front-page story in the Racing Post suggested that Sir Alex Ferguson – who has shares in horses in the Nicholls yard – would be a good person to consult for advice on how Thomas could regain his confidence.
Yet Lesson One in the Sir Alex Book of Management is that you should never, ever criticise your players in public. The very same weekend, in fact, Cristiano Ronaldo was sent off for a ludicrous deliberate handball against Manchester City – after which Ferguson blamed a City defender for giving Ronaldo a shove and the hostile crowd for influencing the referee.
If Thomas has suffered a crisis of confidence over the last couple of months, who can blame him? That said, a strike-rate of 20%, and a level-stake profit of nearly 16 points, since 1 December, and a record that shows no falls against his name since before Christmas, would suggest that he is not doing too much wrong.
Still, the decision has apparently been made, albeit while Harry Findlay, Denman's co-owner and Thomas's most loyal and vocal supporter, was on the other side of the world. The most interesting question now is what it might mean in the run-up to Cheltenham, and then beyond.
The problem Nicholls has now is almost one born of his own extraordinary success. He has a yard full of outstanding horses, including the first three in the betting for the Gold Cup and Master Minded, odds-on for the Champion Chase, but even a stable jockey as talented as Ruby Walsh can't ride two in the same race.
If Nicholls thinks it is difficult to keep his jockeys happy, then juggling the wishes of the people who actually pay the bills may come as an even greater shock. Clive Smith, for instance, may well consider that his two horses, Master Minded and Kauto Star, should come as a package. If Walsh wants to ride one, he had better be on both, which would leave open the question of who rides Denman if, or hopefully when, he gets to the Festival. Paddy Power yesterday made Thomas odds-on to do that but they are hardly likely to be flooded with money at that price.
The consolation as Nicholls works through the permutations is that such problems are the symptom of his dominance of the game. If anyone was thinking that the overwhelming power of Team Nicholls was starting to make the game a little dull, however, it could in fact be that things are about to get very interesting indeed.
