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I didn’t want to disrupt the Cobden thread, but it set me thinking of the Nicholls decline. Is it simply a path that some highly succesful trainers are bound to take? I seem to recall reading that even Vincent O’Brien seemd to lose his touch toward the end.
Remember how successful Kim Bailey was in his early years? You’d think that all a trainer can do is get better with experience. Kim has battled away over the years and gets the odd good one from time to time, but he never got back to the pinnacle. The only one I can think of who has kept going at the same level season after season is Nicky, proving it can be done. Why do the others fail to maintain success.
Will Skelton and Mullins eventually go the same way as Nicholls?
I don’t think he’s lost it , he’s having a bad season and he simply doesn’t have the horses just now but I’d say Henderson has declined more , take Caldwell Potter , that was a great training performance last spring , Nicholls has never lost his bottle , will be interesting to see who gets the job at Nicholls , also should remember who Nicholls has brought through in the train ranks , Skelton who is the new power and Fry , another intelligent trainer
Mullins isn’t going anywhere , Patrick already trains a lot of the horses , that set up is set up.for the next 20/30 years
I suspect that some of Kim Bailey’s decline was the move from Lambourn to Northants.
Now hes back down there, his stats are better, although still no stable stars.Nicholls, keeps saying not got the quality of horse anymore. But saying that, hes had some of the best English based chasers in recent times. Has he still got the owners with money to compete with Mullins etc. I dont think he has.
Henderson, hes the enigma, just when you think hes lost it, up pops another one.
Alan King is another who springs to mind.
Ultimately, a trainer is only as good as the horses they are sent. Willie Mullins couldn’t turn Amrullah into a Gold Cup winner.
What’s criminal about putting the top two in last season’s table in the same sentence? 🤔
Nicholls was at his peak in the Kauto Star, Denman and Big Bucks era. That was just before the Irish dominance.
Since then, the power has shifted across the Irish Sea. An early sign was when Walsh gave up on Nicholls and threw in his lot full time with Mullins.
Nicholls is still a successful trainer. He had a Grade 1 winner over Christmas and he had several at Aintree last season. But he looks finished as a Cheltenham Festival trainer. He simply cannot compete with the Mullins firepower at that meeting.
I can’t remember but didn’t Nicholls change who sourced his horses? He doesn’t seem to get the best anymore.
I’ve long thought Nicholls is possibly a difficult character to work with as in he probably wants to have all the say regards which races the horses run in. He seems the sort that would go off in a tantrum very quickly.
It’s no secret he’s lost a lot of good owners this past few years and McManus himself has never given Nicholls many horses while supporting so many other yards in both England and Ireland.I think he’s possibly the creator of his own demise.
“I’ve long thought Nicholls is possibly a difficult character to work with”.
I expect one or two ex-jockeys would concur.
It’s like Gordon Ramsay , plenty want to learn off him , it’s also these characteristics that made him a success , he started with nothing , you can’t knock what hes achieved
There is so much more competition in sourcing the raw material than there ever was – Nicholls and then Mullins were pretty much the only ones pinching the best young horses from France at one point and a lot of the Irish stock were also going over to England as well.
Now all the up and coming trainers have their own people on the ground in France sourcing young horse whilst Mullins has pretty much perfected the art and a lot of the top young Irish horses are staying over there so getting the raw material is much harder.
At the end of the day Nicholls did rely a lot on Paul Barber sourcing horses and more owner breeder types that would send families to certain trainers (Henderson also had those type of owners too) but you get more businessmen with very deep pockets coming into the sport that are well able to bankroll newer trainers in splashing out for young horses at source that would have gone to the older established trainers like Nicholls and Hendo.
Newwer and younger owners tend to be a lot more fickle in moving horses to different trainers simply because there are more good trainers around to chose from that also might be more media/tech savy rather than old school style of doing things.
I have no doubt that if Nicholls can get hold of the right horses he is still more than capable of getting the job done – Mullins aside for the last two season, Nicholls is still in the top two or three in the trainers title list and he won the title in 2022/23.
The ill fated Kalif du Berlais looked like he could have been heading for the top echelon of 2m chasing and No Drama This End potentially at this stage could be as good as anything he has had and might well be his Gold Cup class horse.
I remember Nicholls’ very public falling out with Kauto Star’s owner, Clive Smith. While I think Nicholls had a point, it shows he is perhaps not the best at schmoozing owners.
Has been unfortunate to lose some of his Grade 1 horses this season. Skelton has had 7 Grade 1 & 2 winners this season. Nicholls is just one behind with 6.
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