Paul Nicholls responds to Gordon Elliott’s ‘duck and dive’ claims | Horse racing news

Paul Nicholls has launched an impassioned defense of British trainers’ approach to campaigning their horses after it was claimed they were damaging the sport by refusing to regularly run their best performers against each other.

The 13-time champion jumps trainer dismissed Gordon Elliott’s suggestion that British racing has been eclipsed by Ireland, partly because trainers have been able to “dive and dive all the time” rather than compete regularly as as he and his colleagues do.

Irish-trained horses have dominated British showjumping in recent seasons, as evidenced when Irish trainers won 23 of the 28 races at the 2021 Cheltenham Festival.

At this year’s meeting, Willie Mullins single-handedly won ten of the 28 races, with all seven races on the final day won by Irish trainers. In addition, the last four winners of the Randox Grand National have also been trained in Ireland, including Elliott’s two-time winner Tiger Roll.

Elliott said on Monday that “there are no hiding places in Ireland” and cited the example of Nicky Henderson running two of his best horses – Constitution Hill and Epatante – in the same race at Newcastle at the weekend as something that “doesn’t happen in England too often.”

He added: “We know when we go to the big races that we have the best horses because you have to pick each other up.”

However, Nicholls was not prepared to accept the point made by Elliott, stating instead that British trainers were solely focused on ensuring that their horses ran in the races where they had the best chance of winning.

“I thought it was a bunch of bull, we lead our horses where we think is best for them,” Nicholls said. “We’re not afraid of anybody, we don’t swerve and dive and try to avoid running into each other. I didn’t agree with a word of it.”

While Nicholls directly defended the approach taken by himself and his teammates, several trainers contacted by the Racing Post on Tuesday chose not to comment.

Nicholls’ view was backed up by fellow Cheltenham Gold Cup winning trainer Nigel Twiston-Davies who said: “With our horses we always try to go where they have the best chance of winning and where we think the prize in money is the best. . It is never our concern who the opposition is.

“I can’t speak for other people in terms of how they approach things or how they see what we do, but we certainly don’t worry about what other people do with their horses. I think that’s the best way to be.”