The Minella Study team are all smiles

Adam Nicol looking forward to JCB Triumph Hurdle with Minella Study

By Sporting Life

Horse Racing

Sun February 22, 2026 · 2h ago

Adam Nicol is looking forward to the Cheltenham Festival with his JCB Triumph Hurdle hope Minella Study but believes we won't see the best of him until next season.

Minella Study ran under both codes in Ireland for John Nallen, earning a flat rating of 72 before his attentions were switched to hurdling, winning on his first attempt at Tipperary in July.

Later that summer Minella Study changed hands, joining the Northumberland based Nicol and came within a neck of winning on his first run for the yard on the level at Musselburgh.

Nicol then turned attention to the winter game and Minella Study impressed in the listed Wensleydale Hurdle at Wetherby before travelling south and maintaining his unbeaten record at Cheltenham, slamming Winston Junior by six and a half lengths.

Nicol told the Nick Luck Daily Podcast that they decided to head straight to the Triumph Hurdle with Minella Study as he'd been busy on the flat.

"He's doing good," the trainer reported. "We've just decided we'd go straight to Cheltenham off the back of the last Cheltenham run, just to try and have a fresh horse, because he ran as a two-year-old for John. He actually had two runs on the flat, won his juvenile hurdle and ran on the flat again. And then we brought him over from Ireland and kind of cracked on with him. So I just thought, because he's quite a light-framed horse, we'd take a chance going there quite fresh.

"I'm not expecting to go and win but I do think he's slipped under the radar a little bit because he's trained by myself and he's in the north of England and I just think he's been missed a little bit."

Regardless of how Minella Study fares at the spring festivals this season, Nicol believes his charge has a bright future, adding: "I think anything that he's actually done this season is a bonus, I really do think he'll be a better horse next season.

"I think once he has a summer on his back and fills up, he's never going to look a big, strong, burly horse but he will physically strengthen up for a short break in the summer. Get some grass into him and then go again next year.

"From day one he's given me a lovely feel but we don't gallop them too much."

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