New champion must step forward

WHEN I interviewed Nicky Henderson at his festival media day last month he admitted the six weeks before the meeting were difficult, taxing ones, for a trainer.

“We’d all love to get the horses to Cheltenham that we want to run but things, sadly, go wrong, and we know some won’t get there,” he said.

The master of Seven Barrows will have had few more jolting setbacks that the Sunday morning confirmation that Binocular wouldn’t be able to defend his Stan James Champion Hurdle crown.