One of the biggest names in UK horse racing, it is fair to say that Nicky Henderson has been there and done it all before. All except with the Grand National, the biggest prize in UK racing and something that has eluded the Lambourn trainer since he took to the ranks in 1978.
Before that, he was assistant to the great Fred Winter and had his father to look up to, Johnny Henderson, one of the founders of the Racecourse Holdings Trust. He’s spent his entire career at the Seven Barrows yard in Lambourn, one that has become a hotbed of talent over the years, with some racing superstars passing through.
In 2020, Nicky Henderson was awarded an OBE for his services to racing in the New Year Honours List, highlighting what an incredible career he’d had and how important he had become to the national hunt scene.
From struggling to win the Grand National to a vast number of Cheltenham Festival and big race wins, it’s been a long, dominant career for Henderson, which isn’t over yet.
Nicky Henderson Grand National Wins
Nicky Henderson has never trained a horse that has won the Grand National.
Their best finish to date was in 1979 with Zongalero ridden by Bob Davies who came 2nd.
Full Results
Grand National Near Misses
Despite having many chances, including some very good ones over the years, Nicky Henderson is still yet to taste success in the Grand National. His first runner in the race came just a year after taking out his training license, which shows the respect he’d already got in the game, and it was also one of his near misses.
Zongalero was the horse in question, running in the 1979 Grand National and finishing second behind Rubstic. The horse appeared to hold a good chance of winning heading into the final furlong but was outstayed up the hill. While second on his first attempt to win the race was an excellent start for Henderson, it was also a sign of how his story with the race would pan out.
His next four runners would all fail to complete the course before a run of six years in which Henderson went close on several occasions, but the race eluded him. The horse Classified came 5th in 1985 and then went closer to come 3rd in 1986, then a year later, The Tsarevich went closer, still coming second, while things were rounded off with Brown Windsor coming 4th in 1990.
Since then, the race has not been favourable to Henderson, despite him having many runners in the contest, and only on rare occasions he’s come close to having success. With so many wins over the years in other big contests, some of the biggest in the game, he will continue to push hard and try to ensure that the Grand National doesn’t become the one that got away.
Cheltenham Festival Success
A meeting that certainly cannot be described as one that got away for Henderson is the Cheltenham Festival. It has been central to his success as a trainer, he’s got over 70 Cheltenham Festival winners in total, and that includes winning every one of the feature races on multiple occasions, not just once.
Of the main races, it is the Champion Hurdle and Champion Chase that people will associate Henderson with the most. Superstars such as See You Then, Buveur d’Air and Constitution Hill have all won the Champion Hurdle for Team Henderson. When it comes to the Champion Chase, he’s had Sprinter Sacre and Altior carrying the flag, both winning that race twice.
The races that Henderson has won over the years would be enough to describe most trainers as highly successful at the Cheltenham Festival. Still, for many of them, Henderson has actually won them on multiple occasions. Going back time and time again with fancied runners and ensuring they are trained perfectly for the day, giving them the best chance to win a big prize.
Given the quality of horses still in the Henderson yard and the number of runners, he sends to the Cheltenham Festival, adding further to that already impressive total looks highly likely.
Ban From Racing in 2009
While there has been a lot of success over the years for Nicky Henderson, a sour moment in 2009 has taken the shine off things a little for some people. Henderson was banned from having runners for three months after he was found guilty of breaching the rules of racing by the BHA.
He was found to have given an anti-bleeding drug to a horse who, at the time, was owned by The Queen. The public feeling against Henderson was certainly heightened due to the owner of the horse, and when four charges were put against him about the case, he admitted to three of them. Henderson admitted the horse should not have been given the drug but argued that it was done with welfare in mind and not to enhance the performance of the horse.
He was banned from having runners for three months but still allowed to train horses during this period. On top of that, he was fined £40,000, which was a record fine given to anyone in the sport at the time.
When the punishment was handed out, there was a lot of talk that it wasn’t strong enough because of the timing. With Henderson training mainly jumps runners, he is very quiet in the summer, and the ban was handed out in July, meaning he was able to return in October, just in time for the start of the new national hunt season.
Flat horses that were affected by the ban were sent to Barry Hills, who trained close by in Lambourn and was a lifelong friend of Henderson’s, while the jumps horses in the yard saw little if any, impact on their schedules.
When the ban was over, Henderson returned to saddling runners himself. Still, there was undoubtedly a bit of bad feeling towards him, mainly because of the owner in question rather than the offence that had been committed. Further tests were completed on other horses in the yard both during and after the ban, but no other issues were found.