Will Henderson make a habit of Saturday winners?

The market to be this seasons’ National Hunt champion trainer has been dominated by Paul Nicholls and Nicky Henderson (right). Nicholls has established a healthy lead at this early stage of the season having a number of notable winners on Saturday’s, including Kauto Star.  However, last Saturday saw Nicky Henderson hit back with three successive winners at Cheltenham including the big handicap chase winner Quantitativeeasing, but he is still about £300k behind his rival.

Henderson and Nicholls go head to head for the big prize this Saturday, the Ladbroke Hurdle at Ascot, with two and three entries respectively.  Nicholls will saddle the favourite in the shape of the novice Prospect Wells.  That horse has won two of his three hurdle races, but novices do not have the best record in this race and I certainly do not see any value at his current best odds of 4.50.  Of the other Nicholls and Henderson entries, three of the remaining four are 4-y-o’s and that age group have never been successful in this race, even when the race was run in Ireland.

That leaves the Henderson trained Gibb River, a second season hurdler who has won three of his four races last season, just finding the Supreme Novices at the Festival beyond him when he was tenth of 15.  That race has been a steppting stone for a few previous winners and Gibb Rivers’ third behind Ubi Ace at Sandown was a cracking reapperance effort, he finished 11 lengths clear of the fourth that day.  Although he meets Via Galilei (the second there) on the same terms for a head defeat, I am sure he can reverse the placings.

At 10.00 Gibb River should be backed to win the Ladbroke Hurdle for Nicky Henderson on Saturday with either Totesport or Betfred.  If he does, he will give the trainer his fourth winner in the last nine runnings of this big handicap hurdle.

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