Nicholls in Ireland

If the raids are made on a sound financial basis then that's fair enough, but if he's sending over horses with marginal chances on the basis of picking up the odd few grand purely for the egotistical reason of helping his cause of winning the trainers championship then I wouldn't be behind him.
 
Grey said:
This is an important enough point. If neither Pipe nor King win the National then Nicholls might be able to retain his UK title with quite a bit less than 2.5m, which would give him even more scope to target the Irish title as well.
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He will have to target the likes of Aintree far less than usual and concentrate on Punchestown, I am not sure he or his owners will be willing to do that.

The point about the National does not add up, how will he know that he "has more scope to target the Irish title" until after the National has actually been run and the result resolved?
 
I'm with Warbler - I'm not sure he has the hurdlers to pull it off. Does anyone have a breakdown of Meade and Mullins' prize money last year split by chases and hurdles?
 
Col, I think it's more down to him wanting to avoid having to place his horses against each other in the UK, tbh.
 
Sorry my figures earlier on were completely wrong…

The 2007/2008 stats are as follows (all in euro):

Willie Mullins – 2,239,903
Noel Meade – 1,801,513
P.F Nicholls – 601,250

The break down….

Mullins:
Hurdle- 938,310.00
Chase – 941,090.00
Bumper – 360,502.50

Meade:
Hurdle – 1,101,543.00
Chase – 510,075.00
Bumper – 189,895.00


Nicholls has a mountain to climb.
 
Irish Stamp said:
Run them in France - Mullins ain't scared (or all that successful over there mind).
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Agreed, Martin. Why send Kauto Star to Down Royal for a piffling £60K, when he could go to the Jousselin for thrice that much!

PS. James Nicholson CC is one of my favourite races on the calendar since it was introduced, so I'm not complaining too much. :D
 
I don't know that its necessarily an ego thing. In order to go forward people at the apex need to set themselves new challenges and hence push the boundaries, I think he'll struggle but by all means have ago. It was only last year that the Irish were complaining that they don't see enough of the UK horses. The attritional rate in a jumps yard must be something like 25%+ so my best guess is he'll struggle
 
What is wrong if it was a bit of an "ego" thing? If you are a trainer, you want to win the best races and be the best at what you can do....is it a negative to see an Olympic athlete go for Gold in two events? Of course not....I do not think he will come close to pulling it off but it would be a heck of an achievement if he did.
 
Galileo said:
What is wrong if it was a bit of an "ego" thing? If you are a trainer, you want to win the best races and be the best at what you can do....is it a negative to see an Olympic athlete go for Gold in two events? Of course not....I do not think he will come close to pulling it off but it would be a heck of an achievement if he did.
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Maybe because it's something Martin Pipe never did?
 
"What is wrong if it was a bit of an "ego" thing? If you are a trainer,............."

Gal, no real problem with the ego thing, as long as it doesn't lead to running horses in races they shouldn't be running in, just to clock up a couple of grand.

Cast your mind back to the unseemly goings-on a couple of seasons back, when both Nicholls and Pipe seemed intent on winning the championship "at all costs". It wasn't a pretty sight.
 
Fair enough Colin but I think Nicholls learnt alot from that and knows better now....there is no suggestion that he will be aiming the wrong type of horse or running them too often...certainly not at this stage yet.
 
I wouldn't dismiss the importance of bumpers either. In 2007 Noel Meade earned 4 times what Nicholls did, and NHF accounts for about 15% of total winnings. I'm struggling to think that PFN will make much headway in this deperatment, and as such he'll be surrendering something of a head start. I'm half wondering if backing Alan King or David Pipe might be the call, but one assumes that if PFN realises he can't pull it off at some point in the season, whether he'll give up the cause and seek to consolidate back home.
 
Warbler said:
. I'm half wondering if backing Alan King or David Pipe might be the call, but one assumes that if PFN realises he can't pull it off at some point in the season, whether he'll give up the cause and seek to consolidate back home.
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If things are tighter than expected in the UK championship Nicholls will stick to the knitting there. I wouldn't be going backing King/Pipe. Nicholls knows where is bread his buttered and wont have a problem sidetracking Ireland if needs be
 
"...........I think Nicholls learnt alot from that and knows better now....there is no suggestion that he will be aiming the wrong type of horse or running them too often...certainly not at this stage yet............"

Let's hope it is not a close call then.
 
probably just a publicity thing because I cant see him doing it in a million years. You cant say the Pipe National distorted the figures any more than the Nicholls Gold Cup 123.
Kauto may never win another race the way his season ended.
The Irish can only get better because theyre shite at the moment.
For all his superstars how many races did he win at Cheltenham?
Vastly overrated in my opinion.
He's very good but every horse is a blueblood and most trainers could send them out to win.

Kauto roughly £300k
That would buy most of Lambourn
 
Istabraq is a half to Secreto, "blue blooded" is very well bred. Didn't Wemyss Bight have a hurdler/chaser trained by Ferdy Murphy making it a half to Champion Beat Hollow? :)
 
Its a big ask but he is picking the right year to try and do it.With the Irish economy the way it is who knows what could happen.
 
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