Nicky Henderson

The Henderson Family has a long association with the Cheltenham Festival insofar as the late Johnny Henderson, father of Nicky, was a founder member of the Racecourse Holdings Trust – now Jockey Club Racecourses – which purchased Cheltenham Racecourse in 1963, thereby safeguarding its future. Indeed, Nicky Henderson, who has won the National Hunt Trainers’ Championship six times, most recently in 2019/20, is also the second most successful trainer in the history of the Cheltenham Festival, behind only Willie Mullins, with 73 winners.

Born in Lambeth, London on December 10, 1950, Henderson was assistant trainer to the legendary Fred Winter, at Uplands Stables in Upper Lambourn, for four years before taking out a training licence in his own right and saddling his first winner, Dukery, at Uttoxeter on October 14, 1978. By the time he moved from his original base at Windsor House Stables in nearby Lambourn to his current home at Seven Barrows in 1992, he had already made a significant impact at the Cheltenham Festival.

Henderson famously coaxed the talented, but fragile, See You Then to win the Champion Hurdle three years running, in 1985, 1986 and 1987, but in the first decade and a half of his career he also won the Stayers’ Hurdle with Rustle in 1989 and the Queen Mother Champion Chase with Remittance Man in 1992. In that same period, he also won the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle twice, the Triumph Hurdle twice and the Arkle Challenge Trophy.

In his career as a whole, Henderson has won the Champion Hurdle a record nine times, with See You Then (1985, 1986, 1987), Punjabi (2009), Binocular (2010), Buveur d’Air (2017, 2018), Epatante (2020) and Constitution Hill (2023), and the Queen Mother Champion Chase a joint-record six times, with Remittance Man (1992), Finian’s Rainbow (2012), Sprinter Sacre (2013, 2016), Altior and (2018, 2019). He has also won the Cheltenham Gold Cup, Stayers’ Hurdle and Ryanair Chase twice apiece.

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