I've just posted this in the GC thread but makes more sense for it to go here now we have this.
From Today's RP so as usual, happy should admin want to take down...
Nicky Henderson stopped short of saying his current team is the best he has managed when showing off his star-studded squad at his annual owners' day on Sunday, but the underlying message for his rivals was clear as the champion trainer unveiled the awesome wealth of talent at his disposal.
Entering the 41st season of his glittering career, Henderson is showing no signs of slowing down, and why would he with the favourites for Cheltenham's three championship races in Altior, Might Bite and Buveur D'Air?
That sparkling trio were the headline acts last season, which provided Henderson with a fifth trainers' title and a personal-best haul of nearly £3.5 million in prize-money.
"Last season was quite special for a lot of reasons," he said. "There was the big three, but it wasn't just them.
"We had 14 Grade 1 winners among our 141 winners, and record prize-money, while the strike-rate was very good as well and we also had 85 individual winners, so they all did their bit, which is important.
"Things can go wrong, which they pretty much did in the first half of last season. It was all about Altior and his wind problem, while Whisper nearly looked like winning the Ladbrokes Trophy. But from Boxing Day onwards, with Might Bite winning the King George and Buveur winning the Christmas Hurdle, things looked up, and then We Have A Dream won the Finale at Chepstow."
In front of nearly 400 invited guests and supporters at his base on the outskirts of Lambourn, the 67-year-old gave a glimpse of his firepower, displaying a strength in depth that must make him the envy of his training counterparts.
Approaching the 40th anniversary of his first success – Dukery at Uttoxeter on October 14, 1978 – Henderson saddled the 40th winner of his latest campaign when Cultivator won at Worcester on Monday, leaving him to reflect that the yard is "a long way ahead of where we'd normally be at this time of year".
Henderson described his string as being well balanced in all divisions and has understandably lofty hopes for the team.
The sky will remain the limit for Altior, who added the Betway Queen Mother Champion Chase to his Cheltenham Festival victories in the Sky Bet Supreme Novices' Hurdle and Racing Post Arkle.
"I think it's almost certain he'll start in the Tingle Creek and we've been talking about a King George entry," Henderson said of the superstar who is unbeaten in 14 starts over hurdles and fences.
"If the King George closed today I'd probably put him in it and one day we might need to branch out, though it's very difficult to do that when they put such a good two-mile programme in front of you. I'm pretty sure he'll stay further.
"How much I don't know, but unless he gets three miles there's not really any advantage coming out of two miles. It brings you into the Ryanair, which is a great race, but it's not the Champion Chase or King George."
The master of Seven Barrows, who this summer sent out his 3,000th British jumps winner, does have an ace in the 32Red King George VI Chase pack in last year's winner Might Bite, who lost nothing in defeat when contributing to that epic Gold Cup with Native River.
Henderson says the horse has "grown up a hell of a lot" and he has half an eye on the Jockey Club's £1 million chase triple crown, comprising the Betfair Chase at Haydock, King George and the Magners Cheltenham Gold Cup.
"Might Bite's priority is another King George," he said. "He's got to have a race before that so we'll try to go for the Betfair Chase.
"He was very good last year and his best performance – and when I was the proudest of him – was in the Bowl at Aintree. He was the only one out of Altior and Buveur who categorically bounced out of Cheltenham and said, 'I'm ready to go again', and yet he'd had the hardest race of the lot."
The third member of Henderson's big three is Buveur D'Air, whose season will be geared around securing Champion Hurdle immortality and emulating the trainer's breakthrough horse See You Then and the mighty Istabraq as three-time winners of the most prestigious contest in hurdling.
The Unibet-backed Fighting Fifth Hurdle at Newcastle and Kempton's Christmas Hurdle – races Buveur D'Air won last season – are inked in again before his historic hurdling bid in March. A trip to Leopardstown for the Dublin Racing Festival in February is unlikely, however.
"I'm not sure he was at his very best at Cheltenham; he's better than that," Henderson added, reflecting on Buveur D'Air's neck victory over Melon.
"I'm full of admiration for that meeting in Ireland, but I'm not sure an overseas trip and almost certainly a hard race – because the best opposition is over there – is the right thing when we're trying to get ready for Cheltenham.
"It's a commendable meeting, but I'm just not sure about the timing as far as we're concerned and his only objective is a third Champion Hurdle."
Senior Chasers
Terrefort, the horse who shows nothing at home but progressed to Grade 1 victories in the Scilly Isles and Mildmay Novices' Chase at the Grand National meeting, could bid to emulate former Seven Barrows stalwarts Trabolgan and Bobs Worth as second-season chasers to win the Ladbrokes Trophy.
Nicky Henderson, who also won his county's most important jumps race with Triolo D'Alene in 2013, is contemplating the Newbury showpiece that used to be known as the Hennessy Gold Cup for Simon Munir and Isaac Souede's five-year-old, whose only defeat in Britain came when he was second in the JLT at Cheltenham.
"He was a big surprise," said Henderson. "He ran in a handicap at Huntingdon off 137 and I was surprised he won that. Two Grade 1s later he made me look rather silly, but I like horses like him – he doesn't show you anything at home.
"He might start in the intermediate chase at Sandown that Might Bite won last year and then we could have a look at the Ladbrokes Trophy."
Henderson, who revealed the same owners' L'Ami Serge was out for the campaign, added: "Terrefort was the best of our novice chasers, while Brain Power was second in the Arkle and Rather Be was second in the novice handicap chase at the Cheltenham Festival.
"River Wylde is also a good horse and won one chase before getting injured, which leaves him in no-man's land, except for intermediate chases, and he'd be good at those. Divine Spear is also a lightly raced chaser with improvement in him."
The trainer can also count on Munir and Souede's stable favourite Top Notch, the "amazing" Theinval, who won at Ayr in April having run at the track the day before, and the Alan Spence-owned pair Josses Hill and Kilcrea Vale.
A summer breathing operation may help O O Seven win the nice prize he has threatened to, and Gold Present, Beware The Bear and Vyta Du Roc could come into the reckoning for the Randox Health Grand National – a race Henderson longs to win.
"I haven't got an obvious one for Aintree, but if I can dig one out I will," he said.
Senior Hurdlers
Nicky Henderson can have few regrets from the 2017-18 campaign, but We Have A Dream's absence from the Triumph Hurdle is perhaps one given what the nascent Champion Hurdle contender went on to do in Aintree's Anniversary 4-Y-O Juvenile Hurdle.
Unbeaten in five starts for Henderson, which also included the Future Champions Finale at Chepstow, he kickstarted a dream Grade 1 treble at the Grand National meeting for owners Simon Munir and Isaac Souede, but there is a sense of what might have been at Cheltenham.
"He won everything he could win, but he got a temperature on the Monday morning of Cheltenham week and that was the end of that, which was pretty bad luck," said Henderson.
"The way he won at Aintree makes you think he wouldn't have been far away in the Triumph. He could start in that four-year-old hurdle at Cheltenham in October and then we'll see if he's a Champion Hurdle horse."
Seven years older than We Have A Dream is the popular My Tent Or Yours, who has finished second in three Champion Hurdles.
"He's getting on a bit but he's definitely not retired and I think he will go for the International Hurdle, which he won so memorably last year," said Henderson, who labelled Grade 2 Select Hurdle winner Call Me Lord an "interesting one".
He added: "The only thing is he has to go right-handed. We could try going left-handed again, but I'm not sure we will. There's the Elite Hurdle, but he proved he stayed two and a half miles at Sandown, which surprised me, and he looked pretty good doing it too."
Soul Emotion, two from two for the stable since arriving from France, could also be a dark horse for staying hurdles, while the trainer is keeping faith with Charli Parcs and also has plenty of belief in Style De Garde, who finished a fine second in the Fred Winter under a big weight.
Novice Chasers
If there is one department Nicky Henderson is drooling about it is his novice chasers, and he thinks the latest innovation to his historic Seven Barrows stable can help them fulfil their potential.
"They could good be fun this season," Henderson purred.
"We've got a new carpet schooling ground, which we're having a lot of fun on. This time last year, I wouldn't have schooled anything because the ground was too quick, but all the novices have been schooled already."
Beat That, Monbeg Legend and Brave Eagle got the ball rolling through the summer and are part of an enviable squad.
As for the stayers, Henderson said: "Santini, who won the Grade 1 Sefton at Aintree, and Ok Corral, who was second in the Albert Bartlett, are two cracking big horses who were only messing about over hurdles, while Chef Des Obeaux did little wrong. Mr Whipped could also come into that, although I don't know how far he'll stay.
"Thomas Campbell had a peculiar way of jumping hurdles, but we've done a back operation and I'm rather optimistic about him."
Over two and a half miles, the trainer reckons On The Blind Side "could be seriously good", while there are similarly high hopes for Diese Des Bieffes, Pacific De Baune, William Henry, Burrows Edge, Burbank, Champ and Duke Debarry at around that trip.
Pacier types include the soft-ground loving Whatswrongwithyou, "a talented creature who travels so well in his races and wants a strongly run two miles", Claimantakinforgan, Jenkins, and Lough Derg Spirit, who is "well schooled and very forward".
Reigning Supreme and Cultivator, a winner in the Bobs Worth colours at Worcester recently, are others expected to fire, as his Caribean Boy.
"He's only four but he's not a novice over hurdles, so he could go chasing and is a fine, big, powerful figure," Henderson added.
"That's a pretty strong team and those three-milers look good, but so do the rest!"
Novice Hurdlers
The summer months can be just as busy for jumps trainers and Nicky Henderson has spent the off-season stocking up on new talent to go alongside his existing pool of promising youngsters.
"We've got a lot of beautiful young horses," said the trainer, consistently a force in novice hurdles and bumpers.
"Dickie Diver was impressive in his point-to-point in Ireland, while Birchdale won his only point. He's lovely and came from the same academy in Northern Ireland as Rathhill, who was second in his.
"I Can't Explain, who was here last year, is also a point winner and a magnificent-looking beast, and Champagne Platinum and Champagne Mystery are other recruits from Ireland worth looking out for."
Mares
British racing's attempts to improve the jumping programme for fillies and mares will always be met with approval from Nicky Henderson, who has assembled a typically powerful set of such horses.
"Oh, we've a good bunch," said the champion trainer, whose hopes in senior mares' chases will be carried by the capable Casablanca Mix, while he is particularly sweet on With Discretion and Kupatana for novice events over fences.
Henderson continues to think the world of last term's smart juvenile hurdler Apple's Shakira.
Just to add, this isn't the official stable tour, rather it's the output from the open day over the weekend.
The official stable stable tours (horse by horse etc.) normally start late Sep/early Oct and historically Nicky and Willie come towards the end in mid-late October.
