When the celebrations are kicking off in the winners’ enclosure, I dare say being a racehorse trainer looks glamorous. But for some, the dark days, clouded by defeat and despair, don’t make up for the good times. Even for the most level-headed, an extraordinary amount of resilience is required to endure a long career.
Nicky Henderson understands this more than most. Under ordinary circumstances, I might have thought that going all the way to Val d’Isère for a day’s skiing was a bit of a trek. But I would have gone a lot further to have lunch with Nicky last week, after the awful time he had at the Cheltenham Trials day.
Every trainer copes with the bad days differently. I used to deal with them extremely badly
Nicky doesn’t actually ski, so he arrived at Le Refuge, a beautiful restaurant in the mountains, in some style on the back of a Ski-Doo. It took me back to the days of Happy Warrior winning the 1977 Fox-hunters’ Chase at Aintree with Nicky on board. And those were the days when the fences took some jumping.
As I tucked into my first grande bière, there wasn’t much choice but to address the massive elephant in the room. ‘Any news?’ was all I had to say, even though I knew he’d be sick of answering the question. I was, of course, referring to Sir Gino, who fractured his pelvis at Cheltenham, thus ending his season and any hope of a tilt at the Champion Hurdle, for which he looked a good thing.
‘Better news,’ Nicky reported.
In this situation, the trainer, their team in the yard and the horses’ owners suffer an avalanche of emotions. The initial shock of the accident, the immediate disappointment, the fear for the horse’s life, the relief that the injury may not be as bad as first feared, and then the strands of hope that the future has a ray of sunshine.
Every trainer copes with the bad days differently. I used to deal with them extremely badly. But Nicky is an old pro, and over the years he’s clearly worked out a very effective coping mechanism. Maybe part of that is to take a couple of days off to clear the head. After all, trainers work seven days a week for months without coming up for air.
The fact that Henderson can march on doesn’t mean he doesn’t have empathy. He has buckets of it. Anyone who saw him being interviewed after Sir Gino’s injury can pay testament to that. And his stepping in to get the best medical care for the retired Sprinter Sacre recently speaks for itself. ‘Did you go home and drink a bottle of whisky after Sir Gino’s injury?’ I asked. He smiled ruefully and shrugged his shoulders. ‘No… I suppose we’ve been doing this for so long, we just deal with it. And life goes on.’
It probably helps that he has other superstars to look forward to, but all the same, being able to take the hits and move on to Plumpton a few days after Cheltenham, and bang a winner in to raise team morale, takes a bit of doing.
There’s only so much beer a man can drink at altitude, so I went for a bottle of Le Grand Marronnier Crozes-Hermitage 2023 to go with my rib-eye steak. I suggested to Nicky that the wine was appropriate. Soft, fruit-forward, approachable, smooth tannins and not aggressive (at least according to ChatGPT). I didn’t think, however, that he would thank me for any further comparison such as ‘this is a classic, drink young, Crozes-Hermitage, not a long-term cellaring wine’. Because if ever a professional sportsman is improving with age, it is Henderson.
After a couple of glasses of red I had enough Dutch courage to address the other elephant: his star hurdler Constitution Hill. ‘So how’s the other guy?’ I asked casually, trying not to sound like another busybody.
‘Well, he worked very well last week… and it’s all systems go for Southwell on 20 February.’ (This is a race on the flat, so no pesky hurdles to trip over.)
‘And then the Champion Hurdle?’ ‘Well, let’s just take it one step at a time.’ And I left it at that, because there are times when a guy needs a break and I didn’t want to ruin his lunch. But the tremor in his voice really brought home to me the pressure that he will be under if he runs Constitution Hill over hurdles again. And, quite frankly, is it worth it? The upside is that he wins a third Champion Hurdle, he gets a special place in history – and that is what he was bred to do. But the downside is that if either he or jockey Nico de Boinville hurt themselves seriously, the fire and brimstone that will be aimed at Henderson by the keyboard warriors on social media and the left-wing media will
be hard to bear.
After such a long lunch, it was time for me to go to bed. I was rooming with the great John Hammond, trainer of champions such as Montjeu and Sauve Dancer, who both won the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. John is highly intelligent, and after learning his trade with Robert Armstrong in Newmarket and André Fabre in France, he decided to train in Chantilly. That in itself makes him more intelligent than the average trainer, because he had to learn French.
Not only did John train Montjeu, he also masterminded the career of that great horse’s son Walk in the Park, who is now a phenomenal National Hunt stallion.
He baggsied the bottom bunk, but I had a few questions for him before he nodded off.
‘John, are you asleep?’ I asked.
‘Well, I’m not now.’
‘Good. Why do you think Walk in the Park is such a good jumps stallion?’
‘Well, he’s got a lot of speed on his dam side,’ he replied sleepily.
‘You sound like Aidan [O’Brien] now… can you name the 14 Montjeu colts and stallions who are higher rated than Walk in the Park?’
‘No,’ he murmured.
‘John, why did you give up training? You were a legend. What was André Fabre like to work for?’
There was a brief pause and then he mumbled something that sounded like: ‘For fuck’s sake, go to sleep.’
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