Champion Hurdle record breaker Nicky Henderson wants even more Cheltenham Festival glory

IT’S been 32 years since Nicky Henderson first trained the Champion Hurdle winner.

So as he finally became the most successful man in the history of the race, with his sixth triumph, there was a pressing need to drink in the moment.

 

Rex Features

“Now where’s my cough mixture?” asked the legend of this great game.

And Henderson was grateful to be passed a glass of red.

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Buveur D’Air, who also gave owner JP McManus his 50th Festival success, had been piloted to a storming victory by Noel Fehily — standing in for Barry Geraghty, who was laid up with a punctured lung and broken ribs.

And at the age of 66, Henderson was still plotting future glories rather than thinking about reaching for his pipe, slippers and a more prolific consumption of the vin rouge.

He’d already calculated that many of the greats had finished third in the Festival-opening Supreme Novices’ Handicap and that his own River Wylde was third yesterday.

 

“Why not keep going?” said Henderson. “That third spot in the Supreme Novices has been owned by Sprinter Sacre and Buveur D’Air was third last year — so maybe River Wylde is the next one.

“I’ve got the best roll of owners that any trainer could have.

“They’re all mates, we do it altogether and it’s got to be fun.

 

“It was fun in 1985 and it’s even more fun in 2017, especially after a day like this.

“We’re running a business, not a charity — although the accountant might not agree. But if we do go skint doing it, at least we’ll go skint happy.”

They were unveiling a statue to AP McCoy soon after the gates opened yesterday morning — and it might not be long before the ruddy-faced old Etonian Henderson is having his own likeness cast in bronze.

PA:Press Association

 

This much-loved old place, Mother Nature’s own amphitheatre beneath the Cotswolds, has been his favourite place since See You Then won three straight Champion Hurdles between 1985 and 1987.

Henderson had to wait 22 years for his next winner in this two-mile feature — Punjabi, swiftly followed by Binocular the next time around.

Buveur D’Air took the master of Seven Barrows past Peter Easterby for his sixth Champion Hurdle winner and his 57th Festival success in all.

PA:Press Association

As well as being an arch tutor of thoroughbreds, Henderson needs to be a canny shuffler of the pack for McManus and others.

Yesterday, his tactical manoeuvrings paid off as Altior, who might have gone in the Champion Hurdle, won the Arkle Trophy and Buveur D’Air, who had been winning over fences earlier in the

season, won the year’s greatest event over hurdles.

Buveur D’Air left his stable-mate My Tent Or Yours as runner-up in this race for a third straight year as Henderson’s third contender Brain Power trailed in ninth.

 

Henderson said: “It was the right thing to switch Altior to the chasing game as he was crying out to jump a fence.

“Besides, while a one-two-three would have looked very pretty it would have been stupid, compared to a Champion Hurdle and an Arkle win.

“Thank goodness it worked because we’d have lost Buveur’s novice chase season. It’s never easy watching three runners but they all looked at the top of the hill, Noel was going very sweetly and this horse loves soft ground.

PA:Press Association

“He’d go round in mud up to his ears and it was just soft enough for him here.”

As for his perennial runner-up My Tent Or Yours, there was a sound of genuine regret from Henderson.

“I’m sure they don’t understand sympathy,” he said, “but you gave to feel sorry for him.

 

“That’s four Festivals for him now and four second places, including in three Champion Hurdles — and we go and do it to him ourselves this time.”

McManus had bought his Champion Hurdler on the cheap from Jared Sullivan last year and Henderson dispensed sympathy to the former owner as well as the stricken Geraghty, who missed the winning ride.

But there was also thanks to his head lad, Corky Browne, no lad at all having just passed into pensionable age himself.

“Corky has been around since the days of See You Then,” said Henderson.

“We’re not quite so young any more but we’re still enjoying ourselves.

“On days like this, why would you want to think about doing anything else?”