Paul Nicholls unable to explain downturn in form at Ditcheat

With only five weeks to the Cheltenham festival, cross-channel fortunes look to have taken another blow with only 16 horses left in this Saturday’s Betfair Hurdle.

The Newbury contest is Britain’s most valuable handicap hurdle and a maximum of 24 runners are allowed compete.

However that number couldn’t even be reached at Monday’s latest acceptance stage with only a paltry 16 potential starters left in that include the Paul Nicholls-trained Knappers Hill.

Nicholls, whose two runners at the Dublin Racing Festival, Frodon and Greanteen, both disappointed, faces an uncertain week himself as a dip in form of his powerful string has led him to not have any runners at all over the coming few days.

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“A lot of ours have run disappointingly in the past fortnight or so,” Nicholls said on his own website.

“Despite all our combined experience, my head lad Clifford Baker and I can’t find anything wrong with the horses.

“There is no sign of sickness or coughing or dirty noses in any of the three yards and all the tests we’ve taken have come back clear, even the ones on those that have run below par.

“The horses look great in their coats and continue to work well, eat well and none of them have had a temperature.

“We haven’t seen a single warning sign that would normally tell us not to run them and I can’t believe the problem has been caused by the annual midwinter flu jabs they get in the last week of December because that has never been an issue in the past.

“Something is not right somewhere. We are now checking out the hay and feed.

“I do remember that we ran some tests in 2015-2016 after only three winners in January and discovered that the hay was low in potassium and calcium and quickly put that right.

“We are all over it, trying to get the answer,” added the champion trainer.

There are no Irish trained entries for the Betfair Hurdle which may be greeted with relief by the home team given the strength in depth on show at Leopardstown’s Dublin Racing Festival over the weekend.

Bookmakers are anticipating similar levels of dominance to last year’s record-breaking Cheltenham festival when Irish trained horses won 23 of the 28 contests up for grabs.

Skybet make it just 7-4 that the raiders will secure 22 to 25 races this time.