Nicky Henderson

Nicky Henderson and Henry de Bromhead have spoken out against the rumoured changes to the National Hunt programme in Britain that would see Grade 1 winners not being qualified to run in the Mares' Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival.  Dual Champion Hurdle winner Honeysuckle signed off on her glittering career for de Bromhead by notching a 13th Grade 1 and a second Mares' Hurdle success in what many people describe as one of the greatest moments in Cheltenham Festival history back in 2023.  Henderson has trained a galaxy of star...

Minella Premier (Ire) (Shantou) (lot 498) topped the first day of the Goffs UK Spring HIT/PTP Sale at Doncaster on Wednesday. Consigned by Minella Racing, the 4-year-old gelding went to Jerry McGrath and Nicky Henderson for £400,000. Related to Grade 2 chase winner Function Dream (Ire) (Strong Gale {Ire}), he won his debut at Ballindenisk by 12 lengths. Another to break £200,000 was Dawn Miss (Ire) (Malinas {Ger}) (lot 486), who sold to Laura Morgan for £220,000. The Monbeg Stables graduate, a full to Listed December H. Hurdle winner Booster...

Trainer Nicky Henderson took to social media late Sunday night to announce the passing of stable star Shishkin (Ire) (Sholokhov {Ire}) after getting cast in his stable and fracturing a hind leg. The multiple Grade 1-winner had been scheduled to leave for Punchestown Monday morning for a tilt at the G1 Ladbrokes Punchestown Gold Cup. Shishkin had launched his 2024 season victoriously with a trip to the winner's enclosure Feb. 10 in the G2Betfair Denman Chase and had last been seen running fourth Apr. 11 in the G1 William Hill...

Constitution Hill (GB) (Blue Bresil {Fr}) will not run at the Cheltenham Festival, trainer Nicky Henderson has announced. The unbeaten and defending Champion Hurdle hero worked poorly at Kempton Park last Tuesday, putting his participation at the showpiece meeting in major doubt. A scope showed mucus in his lungs and despite slightly more positive news in the following days, results of a blood test on Thursday proved to be another blow. However, Henderson stressed that another blood test on Monday would probably prove to be the "acid test", and on...

It was the late Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother who was the major supporter of National Hunt racing within Britain's Royal Family, but King Charles III and Queen Camilla could be represented at the Cheltenham Festival with both Reach For The Moon (GB) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) and Steal A March (GB) (Mount Nelson {GB}) under consideration for the March showcase. Reach For The Moon, now five, won the G3 Solario S. at two as well as finishing runner-up in the G2 Champagne S., and was at one stage considered...

The Retraining of Racehorses Racing to Cricket tournament is set for Sunday, Sept. 3 at the Wormsley Cricket Ground on the Getty Estate, near High Wycombe. Teams from the yards of Nicky Henderson, Richard Hannon, Ben Pauling, Jack Channon, as well as the combined Newmarket trainers' team of George Boughey, James Ferguson and Charlie Fellowes will compete to win the RoR Racing to Cricket trophy. A champagne reception, as well as a buffet lunch and traditional cricket tea in the private marquee, will be offered but tickets for the event...

A 2024 nomination to The National Stud's Time Test (GB) is among the lots of a charity auction organised by trainer Nicky Henderson. Set for Newbury Racecourse on Friday, May 19, all proceeds of the auction will go toward the children's charity The Starlight Foundation. Friday is the first day of the Lockinge meeting at the racecourse.

CHELTENHAM, UK--One champion crowned as another exits. But there was no quiet shuffling off, stage left, for Honeysuckle (GB) (Sulamani {Ire}), who was roared home, roared in, and roared out of the Cheltenham winner's circle that provides no better setting for equine coronations.  Just forty minutes earlier the new king of the hurdling division, Constitution Hill (GB), had delivered exactly the performance expected of him but one which can never be guaranteed in the hurly-burly of championship races at the Festival. Plenty of commentators are already suggesting that the son...

Sean Doyle pulls Monbeg Park (Ire) (Walk In The Park {Ire}) out of his stable and says proudly, "That's the type of horse the likes of Willie Mullins and Eddie O'Leary want to buy."  It begs the question, why is Monbeg Park lining out for Doyle and not any of the powerhouse stables in Sunday's G1 Lawlor's Of Naas Novice Hurdle? After all, Doyle has earned a reputation for selling future stars rather than racing them and can count a Cheltenham Festival-winning graduate to his roll of honour almost every...

CHELTENHAM, UK--There are horses, and then there's Honeysuckle (GB). Thought it may seem like sacrilege to compare the superstar hurdler to the greatest racehorse of the modern era, there has been no better winning sequence on the turf since Frankel (GB) stepped off it to the breeding shed a decade ago, and Honeysuckle isn't stopping yet. The daughter of Sulamani (Ire) is now a dual Champion Hurdle winner, a treble Irish Champion Hurdle winner, unbeaten in 15 starts under rules, plus her debut triumph in a point-to-point at Dromahane at...

John Gosden, alongside fellow Newmarket trainers Sir Mark Prescott, Robert Cowell and David Simcock, will make up one of the dozen teams of the Racing League tournament which begins next summer. Another Newmarket team is comprised of Michael Bell, Ed Dunlop, James Fanshawe and Roger Varian. Clive Cox, Nicky Henderson, Charlie Hills and Jamie Osborne are representing Lambourn. Another team is Mick Appleby, Michael Dods, David O'Meara and Paul Midgley. Mick Channon has joined Paul and Oliver Cole, Eve Johnson Houghton and Hughie Morrison. France will also send a team...

CHELTENHAM, UK—International Women's Day carried over from Sunday to Tuesday for the curtain up of the Cheltenham Festival at which three of the day's four Grade 1 contests were won by mares bred in Ireland, France and Britain. Admittedly, one of those races was restricted to mares only but the Close Brothers Mares' Hurdle provided arguably the contest of the day, between the Willie Mullins-trained favourite Benie Des Dieux (Fr) (Great Pretender {Ire}) and Honeysuckle (GB) (Sulamani {Ire}), the headline act in a strong team of jumps mares owned by...