Harry Derham seeks to end 11-year spell with Nicholls on a high

Harry Derham admits it would mean a “huge amount” if he could celebrate one more Cheltenham Festival winner with 12 times champion trainer Paul Nicholls at The Festival™ this year before bringing his 11-year association with the yard to an end.

For more than a decade the 27 year old has played an integral role in Nicholls’ all-conquering team at Ditcheat both in and out of the saddle. However, all that will come to an end next month with Derham set to take out a training licence of his own.

Derham rode 41 winners for Nicholls during a spell as a conditional jockey before calling time on his career in the saddle in 2014, and for the past six years has occupied the coveted role of assistant trainer to one of Jump Racing’s modern day greats.

While privileged to have been associated with many notable triumphs during his time at the yard, Derham admits to being as captivated by the achievements of the mighty Kauto Star and Ruby Walsh as any other fan of the sport.

Although having fond memories as a youngster of Kauto Star’s two Cheltenham Gold Cup triumphs it was his unfortunate third fence departure in the Queen Mother Champion Chase that evokes his first Festival flashback.

Derham, who is also Nicholls’ nephew, said: “I’ve worked here for 11 years and it would mean a huge amount if we could get another Festival winner before I leave as I’ve loved my time here - plus we didn’t have a winner at the meeting last year.

“My first Cheltenham Festival though was before I started working here and it was the year (2006) when Kauto Star fell in the Queen Mother Champion Chase.

“Paul had won what was the RSA half an hour before with Star De Mohaison and I remember Kauto then falling in the Champion Chase and I just cried all day when he fell. I was so upset and so disappointed.

“I’ve said it loads of times but I think the reason I’m in racing is because of Paul, Ruby Walsh and Kauto Star in all those Gold Cups and amazing races.

“The Gold Cup to me was the best race of the entire year so to watch Paul win three of those when I was at a very impressionable age was just magic.

“Kauto’s first Gold Cup in 2007 was very special as it was the first that I had seen him win, but 2009 when he made history in re-gaining the Gold Cup I was probably more aware of the enormity of it. It was extraordinary.

“I hope in my life I see another one like him but it will be a while before I do. He was an absolute horse of a lifetime.

“That 2009 Gold Cup win is the one that stands above all the other memories, in terms of Kauto. Ruby’s celebration as he passed the line was one of those unbelievable moments.”

The Champion Chase might have escaped the clutches of Kauto Star during his incredible career, but in 2015 it provided Derham with one his most treasured Festival moments when watching Dodging Bullets capture the Grade One prize.

He said: “Since I’ve been working here one of my biggest highlights without a doubt was Dodging Bullets winning the Champion Chase as I used to ride him at home every day.

“That season he won the Tingle Creek and the Clarence House on the way to the Champion Chase. I remember a lot of people saying it wasn’t a good Champion Chase but I didn’t care - he’d won the Champion Chase!

“He was an odd horse. He was really talented but the first three years we had him we felt he didn’t quite perform to his best at Cheltenham.

“For whatever reason by the time he got to March he had over-trained himself. It wasn’t anything we were doing but he used to just pull too hard at home. It used to be -3C and he would be sweating like mad.

“You would always get to Cheltenham and he wouldn’t be at his best and was just over the boil. I remember he finished ninth in a Supreme and fourth in an Arkle.

“However, in 2015 he gave his owners a day never to forget and one I never will. I remember leading him back in with the girl who looked after him and I will never forget that moment.”

Success at The Festival often stimulates all kinds of emotions, but for Derham his sole victory in the saddle at the meeting aboard Salubrious in the 2013 Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys Handicap Hurdle was a particularly poignant one.

He added: “I was lucky enough to ride a winner there in Salubrious, who won the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle.

“That was a weird week as Clifford Baker, head lad, had just lost his son Dominic about two weeks before so the yard was very sombre.

“We hadn’t had a winner at Cheltenham that week and everyone was quite down. Silviniaco Conti fell three out when travelling well in the Gold Cup and I walked out to the paddock and Paul said, ‘I nearly didn’t run him as the ground had gone too soft’.

“Paul said, ‘just drop him in and hunt away and if you can get into it then fantastic and if not look after him and we will try again at Aintree’. I went out there with no pressure and he went and won.

“It was an amazing feeling going up the home straight and winning. Then obviously it was very emotional.

“To ride a winner at the Cheltenham Festival was fantastic and very exciting with it being a boyhood dream coming true, but then seeing Clifford and his family afterwards evoked very mixed emotions.

“Clifford came up to me afterwards and said thank you. I will never forget that moment as it was like a lift to him.

“I’ve known Clifford my whole life so for him to have that happen to his family and to ride a winner that week it didn’t change what had happened but it gave him relief for a couple of moments with all his family there – that was pretty special.”

In more recent seasons Derham points to Frodon landing the 2019 Ryanair Chase and the victory of Politologue a year later in the Betway Queen Mother Champion Chase as personal highlights.

He said: “There have been some mega days there. Frodon winning the Ryanair, I will never forget that reception that he got. I just love that horse. I don’t think he has ever been rated that highly and been expected to win those races.

“The day he won the Ryanair I remember Gigginstown Stud sent a horse upsides him the whole way to try and upset him. It was an end-to-end gallop and they kept trying to take him on and he just wouldn’t lie down.

“We’ve had some of those lovely Festival moments but I think I will remember the ones like Frodon, Politologue and Dodging Bullets.

“Those horses that perhaps weren’t the best horses there but because Paul trained them brilliantly and they got brilliant rides on the day they gave their absolute everything to win.

“I’ve been here the whole of Politologue’s career and he has been the most wonderful horse. He has won four open company Grade Ones now and is a proper tough horse and he has repeatedly shown that.

“He has run at the Festival five times and touch wood this will be his sixth but that says it all about him. To have his day was fantastic as he had run good races at the Festival before.”

Looking ahead to this year’s meeting Derham admits he is excited about Bravemansgame in the Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase but says victory for Stage Star in the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle would be the perfect way to end his time at Ditcheat.

He added: “Bravemansgame is the obvious one for us but a horse I’ve loved all season is Stage Star. I thought he would win the Challow and I was confident before that.

“I’m confident he is a high class horse. He might not be good enough to win the Ballymore but he is a very high class horse and he will have lots of big days, I’ve no doubt that.

“He might not have a sexy profile but he is a horse with a big engine - a good jumper with a bit of pace.”

Not only would a final Festival winner be a fitting farewell for Derham before heading to pastures new, but it is something he would love to see happen again for his mentor Nicholls, who he has nothing but admiration for.

He added: “Paul is 12 times champion trainer, he has won four Gold Cups and had countless Festival winners and he is an unbelievable trainer.

“Not that it would silence doubters, as he doesn’t need to, but I think people sometimes forget that he is probably one of the greatest trainers of his generation.

“Having a winner this year at the meeting would be amazing, more so for Paul as to have a winner on the biggest stage again would remind everyone how good he is.”