Paul Nicholls fears Nicky Henderson's title challenge

Paul Nicholls fears Nicky Henderson could come into the reckoning for the trainers' championship. The 10-times titleholder currently leads his nearest pursuer Colin Tizzard by £1,591,739 to £1,277,562, with Henderson around £100,000 behind him.However, Nicholls would not be surprised if Henderson made significant inroads with a good Cheltenham Festival."We are £300,000 in front of Colin, but I think Nicky is a bigger danger than everybody thinks," said the Ditcheat handler."He has got an awesome team of horses to run if you think about Altior and the Champion Hurdle horses. Colin is relying on one or two races."It's great going into Cheltenham £300,000 in front, but you can come out of it £300,000 behind, it soon changes at Cheltenham."There is a lot of racing left through March and April that we will have lots of runners in."We have not got many to run in the better Grade One races, but any prize money is helpful."With 114 winners already this term, Nicholls has his eyes on beating his best-ever seasonal tally of 155 in 2008-09"I think last year it took us until February 11 to get to 70 (and 122 in all)," he said."You have got to keep looking after what you have got and not go too deep too soon. It would be a nice aim to beat 155."Last April we had 30 winners and at the back end of the season we have loads of horses to run."Nicholls does, however, believes Tizzard holds the key to the Timico Cheltenham Gold Cup and sees Native River as the ideal type, especially after stablemate and rival Thistlecrack was beaten on his latest start."Thistlecrack is a very good horse but he got beat and that showed they can all get beat," said Nicholls."What I like about Native River is he is a good, solid galloper. He won the Hennessy and he won the Welsh National off top weight."That tells me he is going to stay and gallop and that is what you need. I've always thought he would be the one everyone had to beat."I think he has got a very good chance."