• Nicholls hopes moody chaser has turned the corner
• Victory would make him ‘realistic contender’ for Champion
The way Paul Nicholls tells it, training a steeplechaser sounds easy. You get him fit, you tweak his schedule until something works and then, whatever that something is, you keep doing it.
But while the theory may be simple, it is the practice that sets him apart. “Every horse is an individual” is a guiding principle in the Nicholls yard and he never stops thinking about ways to coax their best from them. And some horses will always prove more of a puzzle than others, which is why success for Twist Magic in the Victor Chandler Chase at Ascot tomorrow would be particularly satisfying for the four-times champion trainer.
Twist Magic was putting up such resistance last season that Nicholls even considered the unthinkable. “There was a time when I suggested to [his owner] Barry Fulton that I wouldn’t be offended if they felt a change of scenery would do him the world of good,” he said this week. “They said no, they wanted to stick with me, which was good because we’re all in it together and they’re really good guys.
“I was pulling my hair out with him at one stage, but they are all characters and they all change just like we do. You never stop learning about them and, from year to year, you do different things with them. We’ve done the same with Kauto [Star], changed routines here and there to make sure that everything still suits, and that’s what we did with Twist Magic.
“We’ve found a regime that suits him, for whatever reason. Last year, he’d be going along to gallop with the string and then just plant himself and refuse to go forwards or backwards. If he was schooling, he wouldn’t school, he just wouldn’t do anything. Now he goes off and does things on his own and he’s a very happy horse, and you can do as much as you like with him.”
Solitude in the mornings has helped Twist Magic to rediscover his focus, after a mulish performance in the Champion Chase back in March that suggested he had slipped beyond even Nicholls’s reach.
“He dropped Sam [Thomas] twice on the way to the start and he ran a shocking race,” Nicholls says. “Mentally, he was all wrong and he was never going to perform. But he’s normally one of those horses that looks dreadful in January and, for him, he’s looking fabulous at the moment. He just appears to be stronger and better in everything he’s doing.”
Twist Magic has already banked nearly £100,000 this season, thanks to an easy win in the Grade One Tingle Creek Chase in December. Sandown, though, is a track where he has always excelled and this outing at Ascot should reveal whether his transformation is complete, or just skin deep.
“For me, that race was over when he jumped the first [with a healthy lead],” Nicholls says. “It’s probably in the back of everyone’s minds that he might be a Sandown specialist and it’s at the back of mine too, but, having said that, he started off this year at Exeter with probably a career-best run on a stiff track.
“He’s also been a bit unlucky at Cheltenham so far. He may well have won the Arkle [in 2007], he was still going really well when he came down at the downhill fence [two out] and in the last two years we just don’t think he’s been right. If he wins on Saturday, it will mean that he’s put together three strong runs in a row, and then you’d have to start thinking he’s a realistic hope for the Champion Chase. If he runs moderately, then I think we’ve got a scenario that it may not suit him.”
Twist Magic will start favourite and Nicholls seems to be as confident as he can be that the eight-year-old is a different horse this year. “He ran in the race two years ago and was beaten by Tamarinbleu,” he says. “Ruby came in afterwards and said, ‘Don’t worry, he’ll still win the Champion Chase, it was only the ground that was too deep for him’. Then Master Minded came along and Twist Magic ran a shocking race at Cheltenham.
“Jess Allen rides him now, who used to ride Denman, and when she rode him on Wednesday she said he’s as good as he’s ever been. My gut feeling from what I’m seeing at home and from what Jess is telling me is that he’ll take all the beating at Ascot. The worry is that we thought that two years ago as well.”
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