By the end of racing on Saturday, a Final Score sheet for the day’s competition might have looked a little like this.

Paul Nicholls 3 Nicky Henderson 0

Lydia Hislop 2 Nicky Henderson 0

Dan Skelton 1 Nicky Henderson 0

To break that all down – Paul Nicholls won a second Tingle Creek Chase with Politologue, his 11th success in one of the feature races of the pre-Christmas jumps season.

Altior, the dual champion chaser, had been withdrawn overnight due to his trainer Nicky Henderson’s concerns with the going.

Perhaps it’s a bit of a silly season that we all got so worked up on whether a trainer wanted to run his horse or not. The horse was put in the trainer's care by the owners. But it was just how events unfolded, with explanations that just did not stand scrutiny that irked so many.

It's the horses who are the attraction, Altior is a huge draw, given we have been starved of so much this year, and we see the jumping stars too few times these days.

The race between two previous Champion Chase winners, in a race that has become one of the highlights of the pre-Christmas section of the jumps season, promised to be the highlight of the winter so far.

The fact that nothing else, even an historic Grade 1 chase, seems to matter away from the Cheltenham Festival is also a continuing point of debate for lovers of the National Hunt game.

The tale of the week can be reviewed in three parts.

1: Henderson was interviewed by Nick Luck on his daily Podcast.

He said the dual champion chaser was in good form, he was very happy with him.

Recalling last year’s late withdrawal from the Champion Chase in Cheltenham he said “We were going into it as high as you could be, he was in terrific form.”

That came after a few earlier season hiccoughs and recalling the race against Cyrname at Ascot in November he said: “You just have to wipe it out of your mind, I shouldn’t have run him, it was crazy. We stupidly went in there without a run, without a racecourse gallop and we got what we deserved.

“We waited until the end of January for Altior to come back. This had been built up at the race of the decade, year…I know what I should have done.”

Points to note: 1. Despite the gruelling race in Ascot – Altior was fine again by Cheltenham.

2. How did Henderson pitch him in so badly unprepared against Cyrname?

2 The first indication of Altior’s absence from the Tingle Creek Chase came on Friday evening on the @sevenbarrows Twitter account,

“The owners, Nico and I reluctantly have had to rule Altior out of the Tingle Creek tomorrow but we do so solely because Altior’s welfare is paramount, we don’t want to begin the season with another gruelling race in heavy ground which would not benefit the road to Cheltenham.”

Points to note: 1. The ground description was never ‘heavy’ and Nico de Boinville, according to Nick Luck, had given no indication of any concern when interviewed at the meeting on Friday.

2. The Tingle Creek was two miles over 13 fences, not the two miles and five furlongs that Altior attempted the previous season at Ascot on bad ground over 17 fences.

3: The Racing TV interview given by Nicky Henderson to Lydia Hislop

After all the media outcry through the morning and afternoon, Nicky Henderson came to clear the air at the end of the Sandown meeting.

Cleary vexed, he contradicted Hislop’s description of the official soft ground. “No, it’s heavy. I’m looking after the horse. He hates this ground, you have tried to kill me. The horse comes before anything else, his wellbeing, his welfare.

“You saw how he finished at Ascot last year, where Nico had to lead him into the enclosures because he was too tired to ride him in. Do you want to see that again? That’s welfare.

“Heavy, holding very sticky. This is an older horse now, it took two and a half months to get him back.”

The interview continued: “That was not what Altior likes going on. He does not go in it. He’d probably win in it but he does not go in it. It’s what the damage would do to him.”

Points to note:

1. Altior did get back for Newbury last year and, as Henderson stated himself on the Tuesday, had never been better than going into last year’s Champion Chase.

2. Altior was better prepared than last year: we’d seen him in the racecourse gallop at Newbury, as he tried to keep tabs on Epatante.

3. The use of the word ‘welfare’ was not ideal. It is linked too often with abuse. It would be extremely rare to see a horse struggle at the end of a two-mile chase but these words can too easily be used against racing.

4. Clerk of the Course Andrew Cooper said on Monday. “I’ve been clerk of the course for 30 years and would like to think, and that people would agree, that I call the surface as I see it. I never thought the ground was anything other than the description it was given as over the two days.

“I couldn’t agree with some of the descriptions Nicky used in terms of the steeplechase course, and felt they were unfair on the team and the hard work we put in to keep the course in the best possible shape."

5. The going was soft when Altior won at Sandown in 2018 and when he beat Politologue in the Game Spirit in Newbury on February 10th, 2018, a proper mucky day as Kalashnikov sluiced through to win the Betfair Hurdle on the same card. Altior went on to beat Min seven lengths in the Champion Chase a month later at the Festival.

“We might go straight to Cheltenham now.”

The differences of opinion were reflected on social media:

James@jamesaknight

This is what the Cheltenham obsession has done to NH racing. A trainer not running former Champion Chaser in the second most important race of the season because they are apparently worried about 'bottoming' it ahead of a race which is over 3 months away.

Matthew Mantle@MatthewMantle3

Listen mate.... nobody knows Nicky's horses like he does, nobody knows what they don't like more than he does and nobody cares for their welfare like he does - and as soon as he's picked Might Bite up from the Trauma Department he'll be dealing with you.

Andrew ...@tuttoinstile

What more does @sevenbarrows have to do to be allowed to choose where and when to run his owners' horses? The man who resurrected Sprinter Sacre for a memorable 2016 QMCC comeback win seems to know what he is doing ... Thoughts on this please.

Craig@craig1983s

Altiorgate - how does racing go fwd and attract new fans when trainers of headline acts offer flimsy excuses that dont stand up to scrutiny? Fictional going claims; bottoming out 14.5wk in advance, etc. Bollocks. Potential to sicken new audiences (& old) who turn elsewhere

It may have been a social media exaggerated outcry, as was noted on Nick Luck’s Sunday Racing TV show, but was it all good for racing? The comments above are from racing fans.

Henderson may also have lost some goodwill over how the news broke of Altior's non-participation before in this race in 2018.

Yet, while the trainer and owner are the ones to make the decision, the fact was that one of the biggest draws in jumps missed a big engagement at the last minute, on rather flimsy evidence, not backed up by other racing professionals either on race times or going descriptions. Questions posed were legitimate.

What was left at the end of the day was a sense of unease. Unease that Cheltenham is the be all and the end all.

The Cheltenham uber alles was also addressed by Dan Skelton in earlier interviews where he had no hesitation of skipping the Festival for Aintree and other prizes with Allmankind.

And unease at the sight of the former champion trainer with a tear in his eye, citing horse ‘welfare’ as a reason for not running when the official ground description and times on the day, gave no indication of ‘heavy’ or ‘gruelling‘ conditions.

The respected trainer also said that he was being ‘killed’ as Hislop conducted the questioning. In an always courteous interview, was she not simply asking the questions that the racing public wanted to hear?

Not to overdo the pun, but it’s a Bravemansgame.

Nicky Henderson and Paul Nicholls

It was hard to find logical reasons for Altior’s non-appearance.

So, by the end of the day, while Henderson got all the aggro - Paul Nicholls had won his second Tingle Creek with Politologue on ground he called ‘not that bad’ as his big rival defected. He had also got Cyrname back in top form after an equally gruelling race last year. After all, he won that race against Altior, so had to run faster.

And for good measure – in his post-race interview on Racing TV, Nicholls uttered those words that were at the root of much of the animosity towards Henderson. “We might go straight to Cheltenham now.”

As Henderson stewed, it was easy to think one trainer went home more than happy on Saturday night with ‘mission accomplished’ written on his dashboard!