Legends of the Turf – Nicky Henderson

Nicky Henderson was born in December 1950 in Lambeth, South London. The son of the late Johnny Henderson MBE, a former Aide-de-camp to Field Marshall Montgomery who also had an early introduction to the racing lifestyle as his father who had also been a financier was one of the founders of the Racecourse Holdings Trust, a forerunner to the Jockey Club Racecourses.

During his father’s tenure at the Racecourse Holdings Trust Henderson Snr helped to secure the future of the mecca of all National Hunt Racing courses, Cheltenham, and in recognition in 2005, two years after his death, Cheltenham honoured Henderson Snr by naming one of the races at the famous Festival after him, The Johnny Henderson Grand Annual Race.

Henderson Jr’s early life saw an education at Eton and the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester before taking up a position at the prestigious stockbrokers, Cazenove in both London and Australia where he also gained valuable riding experience at Randwick in New South Wales. A city broker’s career though was not to be for Nicky Henderson as his passion for riding and horse racing saw him take a different path.

In 1974 he took up a post as Assistant Trainer with the legendary Fred Winter whilst also continuing to ride as an amateur jockey and winning races including the Fox Hunters Chase at Aintree on Happy Warrior.

Henderson has been quoted as saying that still even now sending runners to the track to race still makes him as frightened as the day he rode in the race. Apparently on race day he “did a fair impression of a barnacle” (Independent 9th April 1999). According to Henderson, “It was a bit hairy because unfortunately we didn't have a breast girth on the horse and the saddle finished round his tail,” Henderson says. “It was a bit scary at the time, but fun when you look back on it.”

In his amateur jockey career which spanned some 6 years he rode more than 70 winners including Acquaint in the Imperial Cup at Sandown in 1977, the same year as his Happy Warrior win.

The final victory of his racing career was in June 1978 with Rolls Rambler winning the Horse & Hound Cup at Stratford. One month later Henderson stepped in to the world of training the horses rather than riding them.

The Windsor House Stables were his first training stomping ground when he succeeded Roger Charlton at the yard and his first winner was in 1978 with Dukery at Uttoxeter, and the following year saw him make his mark by seeing Zongalero finish second to Rubstic in the Grand National!

His roll of top class horses have included the likes of the unpredictable See You Then who according to Henderson had “taken chunk’s out of me” even though he would give the horse a carrot every night! He would forgive the horse though given his wins which included the Champion Hurdle in 1985, 1986 and 1987 and he was subsequently crowned Champion National Hunt Trainer in the 1985/86 and 1986/87 seasons.

From his humble beginnings it was the stable swap with Peter Walwyn and the move to Seven Barrows in 1992 which sealed some amazing results for the now well-known trainer including excellent results at the prestigious Cheltenham Festival

Other stand out performances include Remittance Man which won the Queen Mother Champion Chase in 1992, Punjabi winning the Smurfit Kappa Champion Hurdle in 2009 and the win the following year by Binocular which gave Henderson his fifth win in the race matching the record held by Peter Easterby. Also Long Run won the 2011 Gold Cup and Bobs Worth won the Blue Riband event in 2013. His record at the Cheltenham Festival is particularly good and no currently active trainer has won more races at the Festival than Nicky Henderson.

But don’t think that his winners are purely Cheltenham bound.

Away from the Cheltenham course he has also landed one or two of the biggest National Hunt races around including the King George VI Chase at Kempton with the dual winner Long Run, and the Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbury thanks to Trabolgan in 2005, Bobs Worth in 2012 and Triolo D’Álene in 2013.

Bob’s Worth was a tale of relative rags to riches as the horse only cost a mere £20,000 and his win was all the more sweeter as Henderson had clear concerns over the soft ground before the race started and how Bob’s Worth would perform under such conditions.

More recently though there is no doubt that he has trained one of the very greatest two mile chasers in history in Sprinter Sacre. The horse is referred to by many as the best since the days of Arkle after regaining his crown in the 2016 Champion Chase at Cheltenham. It was an amazing training feat given that the horse had not won a race in almost two years! Sprinter Sacre was initially suspected of having a heart problem but he was eventually retired after having sustained a leg injury.

Unfortunately Henderson’s career has not been all roses though and a particular controversy in 2009 is probably one he would rather forget.

In June 2009 Henderson was found guilty of breaching the Rules of Racing by the British Horseracing Authority. Moonlit Path was being trained by Henderson for The Queen and the horse failed a drug’s test.

The drug purportedly used was one which prevented bleeding of the horses, a common problem, and the preventive drug was found in Moonlit Path’s blood stream.

Henderson actually admitted to three of the four counts against him at the hearing but argued strongly that the drug had only been administered in the horse’s best interest and welfare and that he had in no way been trying to improve the performance of the horse.

Later in July that year there was a second hearing to determine what sanctions would be applied to Henderson and the yard and a fine was imposed for £40,000, a record penalty in the UK, and banned from running his horses for a period of three months. Fortunately in some way for Henderson the imposed ban inconvenienced him little as being primarily a jumps trainer his main season was hardly affected as the ban took place over the summer. He was allowed to continue to train while the ban was in place, but the damage to his reputation was a cost he would have to endure.

Henderson also trains flat horses though and while the ban was in place most of his horses were transferred to his friend Barry Hills yard. One high class horse in the stable at the time was Caracciola which was due to run at Royal Ascot that year. Hills as trainer ran the horse with Henderson appearing at the course as Barry Hills “guest”, needless to say this caused some controversy but as Henderson had not been “warned off” no rules were broken.

Caracciola had already won the Cesarewitch Handicap at Newmarket in 2008 at the grand price of 50/1 and the horse subsequently went on to win the Queen Alexandra Stakes at Royal Ascot the following year.
By the end of the 2016/2017 National Hunt season Henderson had been crowned Champion trainer for the fourth time after yet another massive battle with his rival Paul Nicholls after having accrued £2,846,487 as a result of 154 winners from his 618 runners. The trainer title went right down to the wire with the final days racing of the season holding sufficient prize money to have seen either trainer take the title. Henderson’s triumph was all down to the success of Altior in the Celebration Chase at Sandown.

That seasonal strike rate of 24.90% is phenomenal considering that represents pretty much that 1 horse in every 4 Henderson saddled through that year had made it in to the winner’s enclosure. In addition, there were a further 170 horses which finished placed!

It was the Grade 1 winners which were the stand out and that tipped the balance for Henderson and his yard though.

It undoubtedly comes as no surprise that his runners are pretty well supported in the market and that overall, although not quite losing your shirt, you would have lost close to 10% of your total stakes had you backed all of his runners blindly based on the Industry Starting Prices during the major part of the season (October to April).

As you may be aware, here at OCP we quite like delving in to the statistics and seeing if there is ever something statistically we may be able to turn to our advantage and can yield us a profit.

Interestingly had you backed all of his handicap runners blindly over the past 5 years you would have turned a small profit had you used the Betfair SP, although we emphasise that the return was small, around 5.50%, still better than most savings rates currently though.

But, if we break down the handicap runners between the race types…

It is his Handicap Novice Hurdlers which are the stand out on the P & L stage. But…remember things aren’t always as they first appear and the bulk of the profits shown came in 2012 and 2013 and the last two years they are actually 0 from 13.

A couple of our authors in the past though have demonstrated to us how to look at the A/E value which is thrown up by HorseRaceBase, or the Actual over Expected wins and Table 1 shows us that the Non Handicap runners have delivered a 0.99 A/E value which is higher than that of the handicappers.

Worth a deeper look?

Interestingly the combined tally of the Maiden Hurdlers and Maiden NH Flat race runners would have delivered over 50pts profit using the Betfair SP, and a very respectable +25.5% ROI is not to be sniffed at.

As with the previous Handicap Novice Hurdles we need a sense check to see how consistent or otherwise they had been over the review period:-

2012 and 2016 offered up a couple of blips but all in all the runners in these types of races have been pretty consistent.

Being careful not to “back fit” too far, if we had concentrated on his runners at the fore of the betting market, i.e. those heading off at 10/1 or less we would have omitted some 32 runners without forfeiting one single winner!

13 of these larger priced runners are included in the results for 2016 and had we omitted these bets we may not have quite brought 2016 back to profit but the resultant loss would have been less than 3 points.

So a little bonus method this month:
Nicky Henderson

Maiden Hurdle and Maiden National Hunt Flat runners

Priced 10/1 or less.

Good luck!