Nicky Henderson

Nicky Henderson needs no introduction to those who are keen National Hunt racing enthusiasts. Henderson started training in 1978 and has trained over thirty Cheltenham National Hunt Festival winners. He has three times been the leading National Hunt trainer, but has so far been denied success in the Grand National.

His first National outing as trainer was in 1979 with Zongalero, which turned out to be the best he has done so far in the race, as the horse came runner-up by just one and a half lengths to Rubustic.

More than thirty years of endeavouring to better that Grand National second place may have been fruitless, but this does not mean that Henderson is by any means an unsuccessful trainer.

Born in 1950, Henderson was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps and pursue a career in the City. His father, a stockbroker, was also a director of Barclays Bank and a member of the Jockey Club, but it was more his father’s horse racing passion that Henderson inherited than the office life. One might have thought that ending up in hospital for a fortnight following his first ride at the Cheltenham Festival in the Kim Muir Chase on Ballycowan would have put him off, but he was obviously dedicated from the start!

This was a very bad start for what turned out to be a good riding career – he had 75 winning rides as a young amateur, which included the 1977 Fox Hunters’ Chase at Aintree. Having been assistant to Fred Winter, in July 1978 he took out his own training licence and quickly proved himself to be a trainer of top-class jumpers.

In 1985 he made up for his horrendous initial visit to Cheltenham with a spectacular treble. Some of the horses he has had success with include See You Then who scored a hat-trick in the Champion Hurdle (1985 – 1987), First Bout (1985), Alone Success (1987), and Katarino (1999). Such a victorious trainer is Henderson that in 2000 he joined the small group of trainers to have scored 1,000 successes and by 2002 he had won every single Cheltenham prize bar the Gold Cup.

At the festival in 2009 Henderson scooped his fourth Champion Hurdle with Punjabi, as well as the Triumph Hurdle with Zaynar. Binocular came third in the 2009 Champion Hurdle and Henderson had been encouraged by his performance at the Contenders Hurdle, stating ‘he did what he had to do and that was the objective’ – and he clearly did as Binocular went on and won the Champion Hurdle at the 2010 Cheltenham Festival ridden by Tony McCoy.

There is now no current trainer with more Festival wins to their name.