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This is the time of the year when he has 4-5 winners across the card on a Saturady. Right now he barely gets 4-5 winners a week. I have no idea what is going wrong in the yard, but the horses don’t seem to finish their races properly. It can’t be lack of fitness or the ability to jump obstacles, but somewhere there is something badly wrong. This turns out to be another very poor Saturday for him.
7 winners from his last 50 runners in the last 15 days. 14% winners isn’t bad, but it is way below the expectation for a man like Nicholls. His horses aren’t falling and they aren’t pulled up either – they just seem to run out of gas. Maybe the quality of his horses is just average at the moment and most of them don’t seem to improve. Like the two G1 participants today: Vibrato Valtat and As De Mee
Posted before on this, dosn’t use Highflyer anymore to buy the horses, Tom Malone buys most. Even so, dreadful run of form seen by the stable in donkeys years. T
Well he did provide Roger Brookhouse with his first British winner of the season the other day . Roger is now about 1 from 30 and probably wondering why he bothered transferring the horses from Tom George. From one point of view it`s great because idle oiks like Nevison having done no homework can no longer hide behind suggesting the big Saturdays are a Nicholls benefit. According to him , today was the day it would all turn round. Took a turn for the worse if anything.
I think the problem is the handicapper as got his horses handicapped to the hilt so there is little room for improvement. They are running as well as I would expect but are just to high in the handicap.
He will come good.Nicholls has been running a few known weak finishers of late, which hasn’t helped his strike rate and some are poorly handicapped. But – on the whole – he’s not in good form at the moment. Every trainer goes through a lean spell now and again. No reason to believe it will last.
Value Is EverythingI think he might Phil Walker, if today was anything to go by. I remember Dan from the days of a horse called Kadarann, who had refused to start and bought cheaply from Doncaster, he spent months hacking him round the countryside and training him in the fields. I would be interested to see how long he remains pals with Nicholls, Hales obviously moved Al Ferof, it was not a suggestion from Nicholls, but Hales, with Nicholls blessing. Dan can buy good horses and has owners to buy them, he’s not far behind in the Championship table either, he is the only real danger to the Nicholls stable. I’ll give it 2 years before he overtakes Nicholls. I’d move Ptit Zig immediately if I owned him, STD is no Ruby Walsh and this horse is desperate for jockey who knows his trade with young horses. Interesting times.
Interesting, Obi. I’m usually loath to criticise jockeys, and Sam has come under fire on this thread before. The questioning he got on the ML yesterday regarding how he ‘gets on’ with Nicholls, suggests there is some whispering going on in the old racing village, and your post adds to that.
I must say that today, I thought he panicked a wee bit perhaps, and began driving PZ into his fences quite early to keep up with the pace. It looked as though his initial judgement was that Dickie had gone off far too fast. But after 2 or 3 fences, it looked like maybe he was having doubts and decided to try and catch up. Any jock can ride a bad race, but if you’re not confident in your own judgement, you are in trouble. I’m only speculating, and it could be that he felt the horse just wasn’t firing and needed stoking along. But he was less than fluent at most fences, which must have robbed him of a fair bit of energy.
Sam will be feeling the pressure the yard is under on big days this season, compared with the wave they were riding this time last year. It’ll be fascinating to see how he stands up to things.
Of course he will be missing people like Dan Skelton and Ruby Walsh…and Harry Fry for that matter….he will also have lost potential horses to both those yards….doesn’t mean he’s still not a quality trainer with the right ammo does it? Did he not win the trainers championship without all three last year?
Just a bit of a lean spell that’s all…
Out of his four runners today I thought they all ran like they should have…
Ptit Zig who is a terrible jumper was always going to be up against it today against Al Ferof….Skelton hasn’t all of a sudden unlocked something magical with Al Ferof…a look back through his profile suggested to me he was the one to beat today and duly obliged…I’d actually give Ptit Zig a bit of credit for being so close when he fell at the last having put in a shocking round of jumping…no different to his two latest performances though in the jumping respect…
Silsol too, was also up against it today against a potentially very smart chaser in Seeyouatmidnight…the swing in the weights and with that run under his belt he was always the one to beat today…
The one for me that should have won did so with the minimum of fuss…
Way too early to be writing off a trainer with the quality of Paul Nicholls…
I think this is a daft thread. Last season was one of huge overachievement for the Nicholls yard. As the championship races at the Cheltenham Festival exposed, there are very few top quality star performers at Ditcheat nowadays. Considering that lack of ‘raw materials’, it was astonishing that Nicholls was able to put together that run of Saturday victories.
In my view, that was a better achievement than anything achieved in the era of Kauto Star, Denman, Master Minded, Twist Magic et al.
With the lack of go-to G1 winners at his disposal, Nicholls had to hit a dry spell sooner or later. Even in this ‘dry’ period, Nicholls has pulled some rabbits out of the hat:
– Prolific summer novice chaser Dormello Mo
– The seemingly exposed Sound Investment improved again to win the Old Roan and place in the Paddy Power
– Career best from former scoundrel Vibrato Valtat in the Haldon Gold Cup
– Back-to-back feature race wins from Irving, who is not the hardiest soulFor his next trick, could he perform a brain transplant on Emerging Talent?
Obi it was Nicholls who suggested it
From the sporting life
Skelton said: “It’s very nice of John to send him to me and it says volumes about the type of man Paul Nicholls is that he suggested he send him to meDroffs, I listened to the RUK interview with Dan Skelton, who said that the Hales had discussed this between themselves and Nicholls had blessed it, I don’t think for one minute it was his suggestion.
Young Fella, I agree with you he did achieve great things lacking G1 horses, however, a lot of the novices were Ruby schooled and started and perhaps that expertise now is what is failing the yard. Who knows, certainly Mullins has most of the top 20 horses and you need those sorts of horses. Nicholls used to have them so something is lacking in that department. It is really good to see other trainers with nice horses having success. I read an article the other day where Nicholls explained that he had built up such a good thing at Ditcheat “that it was not going to disappear overnight” it did for Henry Cecil for many years!
Nicholls achievement’s last year with a relatively under-strength string, were very impressive. i routinely try a lucky 15 now on Saturdays, mainly with his horses, + scored a few big ones last season. His horse usually seem so well schooled, usually settle + jump well.
I agree that this year he seems to be struggling; in particularly Rocky Creek and Unaminite were abysmal last saturdayWhat is going on with this yard it would be nice if he came out and told us this must be the poorest run of bad luck his ever had and still very short to win the 2015-16 season.
Although Nicholls is not in “good form”, I don’t think it is as bad as current win strike rate implies. Over the last couple of days – Samategal and Adrien Du Pont ran well today, Sire Collonges ran a blinder in the x country, Wonderful Charm and Mon Parrain as well as could be expected to be placed.
Value Is Everything
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