Paul Nicholls: David Ord reflects on a visit to the champion trainer ahead of the 2020 Cheltenham Festival

In 2009 they provided him with his first, second and third Cheltenham Festival winners in successive days.

Arkle, Champion Chase, Gold Cup. He was on the map.

"I look at that picture a lot because without what those three horses did that week I don’t think I’d be where I am today. They were the launchpad," he mused.

"We’d been waiting eight years for our first Festival winner so when Flagship won the Arkle we had a party in the Manor Inn back here in Ditcheat that night. The next day we were back there after Call Equiname and when See More Business won the Gold Cup we returned. It was an amazing week."

His relationship with the great meeting is extraordinary. Here’s the man who plotted the paths of Kauto Star and Denman through a golden age of steeplechasing, battle buses and all.

Then there was the brilliance of Master Minded, who won the Champion Chase as a five-year-old with a performance that defied belief.

Big Buck’s rolled into town to win three Stayers’ Hurdles when his chasing career was aborted after unseating Sam Thomas at the final fence in the 2008 Hennessy. As far as Plan Bs go, it just about tops the all-time list.

But that dominance had to end and Nicholls has spent the following years restocking, rebuilding and somehow battling it out to be champion trainer despite a lack of Grade One superstars.

That’s down to his ability to run the right horse in the right race. As far as target trainers go he has few – if any - peers.

As far as trainers go he has few – if any - peers.

And now with another title snared, he heads to Cheltenham 2020 with one of his smallest teams. But that’s by choice. A host of promising young hurdlers and chasers are already being earmarked at Prestbury Park 2021 but leading the charge this time around is Clan Des Obeaux.

He’s now a dual King George winner but one who many feel didn’t get up the hill at Cheltenham last year – and for that matter won’t get up it this time either.

Nicholls isn’t convinced by the latter argument. This time there’s been no race between Sunbury and Prestbury just food, work, food and work. Three times a day he’s thundering up the gallop at Ditcheat and the trainer has him exactly where he wants him.

He feels he's a fitter horse off the back of this preparation and will be ridden with more restraint than in 2019. Creeping into proceedings on the final circuit before being asked to climb the hill on fresher legs.

Ditcheat will be double-handed in the Betway Queen Mother Champion Chase with Politologue, a horse his trainer feels is vastly over-priced at 33/1, and Dynamite Dollars.

He's animated when talking about this one. A Grade One winner who returned from a year on the sidelines to finish third behind Altior in the Betfair Exchange Chase at Newbury.

He was three-and-a-half lengths adrift of the dual Champion Chase hero there with Harry Cobden left wondering what might have happened had he kicked on at the second last rather than opting to sit and wait on a horse who was easing his way back into competition.

He's bounced out of the outing, will come on for it, and if there is a party pooper in what looks a stellar renewal of the day two feature, it might just be him.

Frodon is back roaring again after a tame autumn and is primed to defend the Ryanair Chase crown won during that unforgettable golden hour last year.

There are handicappers too – the impulse is now to run Greaneteen in the Grand Annual, where he'll have some familiar company from nearby boxes. Mick Pastor is a work in progress but the pieces are coming together ahead of the Boodles and Alcala is fancied to run a big race in the Foxhunters.

No scatter-gun approach from Nichols, no battle buses but a handful of serious chances at the meeting that matters most. The champion trainer is ready to roll into town.

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