ONCE you have stood at the top of the famous hill gallop at Ditcheat, you’ll never forget the view.
It’s a little after 8am and the sun is just starting to burn through the carpet of mist that has covered thousands of acres of farmland beneath us.
“I’ve been coming up here most days for almost 34 years to the day, and it still blows me away,” Paul Nicholls says.
The silence is broken by that unmistakable sound of racehorses at work, and soon a group of jumpers come winging by.
Just think of all the great horses Nicholls has watched come up the side of this hill over the years. Kauto Star, Denman, Master Minded, Big Buck’s.
The 63-year-old has never been the type to live in the past, but he could still talk until the cows come home (there are enough of them in the dairy herds in the distance) about those glory days.
Of course, these are very different times. Willie Mullins gets first dibs on the bulk of the best talent in Britain, Ireland and France, while a major threat has emerged in Warwickshire in the form of old assistant Dan Skelton.
For the first time in a quarter of a century, Nicholls is a 14-1 longshot to win the jumps title for a record-equalling 15th time.
He said: “It probably would be one of my best achievements were I to win the trainers’ title again. Numbers wise we are probably just going to find it hard, Dan has lots of horses and the bit between his teeth.
“You can never say never, if we have a lot of luck and you’re in striking distance near the end of the year, then you can give it a good go. Nobody has a God-given right to win the trainers’ championship, you have to earn it.”
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Nicholls knows that only too well. Winning titles with a stable full of stars was like shelling peas, but his last few championships have been won on the backs of lesser lights.
Somehow, he finds a way to win — even when things are going wrong off the track.
In the middle of last year, the form of the yard dropped off alarmingly, and with it came plenty of scrutiny.
He said: “Last year we had a quieter season than usual, but we still won a Paddy Power, a Coral Gold Cup, races at Cheltenham and Aintree. We haven’t got anything to prove to anybody.
“I don’t take any notice of all the bulls*** some people come out with, especially on social media. The longer you’re in the game the more you’re going to get flak.
“From December the horses weren’t quite right, we had challenges with a bit of ringworm and they weren’t performing and we were pulling out hair out, but they came good in the spring.
“It was the first time in 34 years we’ve had a spell like that, you can’t be written off after one bloody ordinary season.
“And I say ordinary, we won lots of big races and 2.5 million in prize-money. You’d take that every day of the week.”
It doesn’t take much to light a fire under Nicholls, who would be my odds-on favourite for a Most Competitive Man in Britain award, if there was such a thing.
So when a couple of high-profile horses were removed from the yard over the summer in Ginny’s Destiny, who has gone to Nicky Henderson, and Kabral Du Mathan, now with Dan Skelton, it had the effect of chucking on another pile of kindling.
He said: “It’s not helpful, it’s disappointing but it happens, it’s part of the game. I just got a text message saying Ginny’s wasn’t coming back. What can you do?
“There will always be owners who take their horses away after a disappointing season. That’s up to them and good luck to them.
“I’ve seen it all over the years, they come and they go, the most important thing is I’ve got a really good, loyal base of owners and we’ll look after them.
“One thing won’t change and that’s we’ve got brilliant facilities, and myself and Clifford have an incredible amount of experience, and we are still as good at our jobs as we’ve ever been.”
And you can sense he has a little extra spring in his step following the recruitment of three fresh faces in the team.
Head lad of three decades Clifford Baker will always be Nicholls’ right-hand man, but Charlie St Quinton and George Edgedale arrived as assistant trainers over the summer, while his daughter, Olive, is the new pupil assistant.
“They are young, hard-working and enthusiastic and they’ve got new ideas. That rubs off on you and gives you that drive,” he says.
And Nicholls has also had a shake-up in the way he sources talent, with daughter Megan now buying a lot of the yard’s horses.
He said: “Over the last few years we haven’t bought particularly well, some were coming through and some weren’t.
“We mixed it up a bit, we are using Anthony Bromley, Megan is buying some for me, I’m doing some myself. I never had a falling out with Tom Malone.
“He is a mate and we still use him, but you can’t put all your eggs in one basket. You never stop learning in this game.”
If there was an air of doom and gloom around the Nicholls yard in the outside world last year, there is nothing but optimism inside Ditcheat.
It certainly helps that horses like Caldwell Potter and Kalif Du Berlais showed their true colours in the spring. The former won at the Festival before following up in a Grade 1 at Aintree, where Kalif was also on the scoresheet. No doubt both will help Nicholls on his quest for 4,000 winners.
Nicholls said: “Caldwell Potter will have entries in a few big races but we are favouring going fresh to the Betfair Chase and I’ll gamble it’s not going to be a bog.
“Kalif will go to the Haldon Gold Cup at Exeter in a couple of weeks if the ground is OK.
“Regent’s Stroll is a real class horse and he’ll go chasing this year. We’ve got lots of lovely horses; Quebecois, No Drama This End, Blueking d’Oroux, Pic D’Orhy. They’ll win nice races.
“We should be able to get to 4,000 winners in the next couple of years. No-one else has done that and it’s something which would mean a hell of a lot.”
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