Which horse was Paul Nicholls’ first Cheltenham Festival winner?

Paul Nicholls, who won the National Hunt Trainers’ Championship for the twelfth time in 2020/21, began his training career at Manor Farm Stables in Ditcheat, Somerset in 1991. Within six years of being granted a licence, he had established himself as an up-and-coming trainer, but finally hit the big time when winning the King George VI Chase at Kempton with See More Business on Boxing Day, 1997.

As far as the Cheltenham Festival was concerned, it would not be until 1999 that Nicholls his first winner, but when he did take his seat at the top table of National Hunt trainers he did so in some style. Nicholls opened his account with Flagship Uberalles in the Arkle Challenge Trophy but, during a memorable week, quickly added Call Equiname in the Queen Mother Champion Chase and See More Business in the Cheltenham Gold Cup to his winning tally. In fact, those three winners were sufficient to win him the leading trainer award for the first time.

At the last count, Nicholls had saddled 46 winners at the Cheltenham Festival and won the leading trainer award six times. He has won all four main ‘championship’ races at least once and, alongside Tom Dreaper and Nicky Henderson, is jointly the leading trainer in the history of the Queen Mother Champion Chase with six wins.

What nationality is Rossa Ryan?

Born in Ballinderry, near Tuam, County Galway on July 3, 2000, Rossa Ryan is an Irish citizen. He is, in fact, the son of successful National Hunt trainer David Ryan. A prolific winner on the pony racing circuit, Ryan was invited for a week’s trial by Richard Hannon in October, 2016, while still in school, and became apprenticed to the yard the following January. Reflecting on his decision to cross the Irish Sea, Ryan said later, ‘It was just too big to turn down. So, in January, I packed my bags and away I went. Haven’t looked back since.’

Ryan rode his first winner, Willwams, trained in the sunbets.co.uk Claiming Stakes at Lingfield on St. Patrick’s Day, 2017 – still three-and-a-half months shy of his seventeenth birthday – and finished his inaugural season with a highly respectable 21 winners. In 2018, he raised his seasonal tally to 78 winners, riding out his claim in the process and, in 2019, rode his first Group race winner, Duke of Hazzard, trained by Paul Cole, in the Celebration Mile at Goodwood. In 2020, he rode his first Royal Ascot winner, Highland Chief, trained by Paul and Oliver Cole, in the Golden Gates Handicap. In 2021, Ryan has been hindered by a broken collar bone and appendicitis, but that has not stopped him from riding 102 winners, including two more Group 2 winners on British soil, and amassing £1.4 million in prize money, so far.

 

 

Will Monmiral go chasing in 2021/22?

The short answer is probably not. Previewing the 2021/22 season his Betfair column in early October, 2021, trainer Paul Nicholls wrote that Monmiral ‘will probably stay hurdling this year’, but added that ‘nothing is set in stone’. However, Nicholls and the owners of Monmiral, who include Sir Alex Ferguson and John Hales, have made no secret of the fact that they consider the Saint Des Saints gelding a steeplechaser in the making. Interviewed in January, 2021, by which time Monmiral was 2-2 for his new yard, following his transfer from French trainer Francois Nicolle the previous November, Nicholls said, ‘He won’t even have an entry in the Triumph Hurdle.’

His decision was vindicated when Monmiral won the Victor Ludorum Juvenile Hurdle at Haydock and the Anniversary 4-Y-O Juvenile Hurdle at Aintree on his next two starts to maintain his unbeaten record. Indeed, on the latter occasion, he beat the Triumph Hurdle runner-up, Adagio, by 7½ lengths at level weights and, in so doing, earned the highest Timeform rating, 151p, of any juvenile hurdler in 2020/21. Of course, Adagio has since finished a close second, under 11st 12lb, in the Greatwood Hurdle at Cheltenham on his return to action following wind surgery, so the Aintree form could yet prove even better than it did at the time.

As far as 2021/22 is concerned, Nicholls has said that Monmiral will reappear in the first Grade 1 hurdle race of the season, the Fighting Fifth Hurdle, at Newcastle in late November. He has, so far, declined to commit to future targets, but does seem keem on the idea of running Monmiral in the Aintree Hurdle, over two-and-a-half miles, at the Grand National Festival in April; Nicholls last won that race with Zarkandar in 2013.

 

Which horse was Richard Johnson’s first Cheltenham Festival winner?

At the time of his shock retirement, on April 3, 2021, Richard Johnson had ridden 3,819 winners, making him the second most prolific National Hunt jockey in history, behind only his old friend and rival, Tony McCoy. Johnson won the Jump Jockeys’ Championship four years running between 2016 and 2019, but not until McCoy – who was perennial Champion Jockey for the preceding two decades – retired at the end of the 2014/15 season.

Johnson rode his first winner of any description, Rusty Bridge, trained by his mother Susan, in the Next Generation Hunters’ Chase at Hereford on April 30, 1994, as a 16-year-old amateur. At the insistence of his mentor, the late David Nicholson, who was, at the time, based at Jackdaws Castle, Gloucestershire, he retained his amateur status until the following November, when he turned professional.

Johnson was Champion Conditional Jockey in 1995/1996 but, as far as the Cheltenham Festival is concerned, did not ride his first winner until 1999. Fittingly, that winner was Anzum, saddled by Nicholson, in his final season as a trainer, in the Stayers’ Hurdle on March 18, 1999. Johnson had ridden the same horse into second place in the same race two years earlier.

Johnson would go on to ride 22 Cheltenham Festival winners in total, including Looks Like Trouble and Native River in the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 2000 and 2018, respectively. At the time of his retirement, Johnson expressed his gratitude to Nicholson, saying, ‘Without ‘The Duke’ [Nicholson] and [his wife] Dinah Nicholson and their remarkable staff, I’d never have got that first leg up.’

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