IT used to be the case that Paul Nicholls just won the Greatwood Gold Cup. He was a bit like Tom Dreaper and the Irish Grand National in the 1960s in that way.

Of the 13 renewals of today’s Newbury feature that ran between 2006 and 2019, Paul Nicholls won nine, eight and a half if you are being harsh and only giving Cornish Sett a half for his dead-heat with Horus in 2006.