If you don’t have the top class horses to fly the flag with then you are at a big disadvantage because your only other option is to get a hoard of much lower class horses and run them in all the lower class races and become simply a numbers trainer.
Nicholls has never been that kind of trainer and given the star horses he has had (a lot at the same time or one after another) I don’t see him changing but lets face it the landscape of getting hold of the raw material is now more cuthroat – I believe this is where Mullins has been many steps ahead now by sourcing horses from France like a conveyor belt etc (his last two Champion Hurdlers both being French bred), he is also a bit into the German market too in that Gaelic Warrior is a German bred horse.
Lets not forget though that at one time recruiting French bred horses was an untapped market that Nicholls was farming with the likes of Kauto Star, Big Buck, Azertyuiop, Master Minded, Silviniaco Conti and Neptune Collonges to name a few all coming from there.