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Nicholas John “Nicky” Henderson LVO – he was made a Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order in the New Year Honours List in 2010 – is legendary in the sphere of National Hunt racing. Formerly assistant trainer to eight-time Champion Trainer Fred Winter, Henderson began training, in his own right, in 1978 and, in a career spanning four decades, has saddled over 3,000 winners and become Champion Trainer, himself, on five occasions.

Indeed, by the time he moved to the historic Seven Barrows Stables, just north of Lambourn, Berkshire, in 1992, Henderson had already won the trainers’ title twice, in 1985/86 and 1986/87. He saddled his first winner at the Cheltenham Festival, the brilliant, but fragile, See You Then, in the Champion Hurdle in 1985 and prepared the same horse to win most prestigious hurdling event in the National Hunt calendar again in 1986 and 1987.

Henderson didn’t become Champion Trainer again until 2012/13 but, even in the intervening years, when the trainers’ championship was dominated first by Martin Pipe and then by Paul Nicholls, he remained the man to beat at the Cheltenham Festival. All in all, Henderson has been leading trainer at the Festival nine times; in 2013, he became the first trainer to reach 50 winners at the Festival and, although overtaken by Willie Mullins as the most successful trainer in Cheltenham Festival history in 2018, he remains clear second in the all-time list with 60 winners.

In 2012/2013 enjoyed a fabulous season, even by his standards, winning the Henry VIII Novices’ Chase with Captain Conan, the Tingle Creek Chase with Sprinter Sacre, the Christmas Hurdle with Darlan and the King George VI Chase with Long Run, all before the turn of the year, and continued in similar vein thereafter. At the Cheltenham Festival, he won Arkle Challenge Trophy with Simonsig, the Queen Mother Champion with Sprinter Sacre and the Cheltenham Gold Cup with Bobs Worth, eventually chalking up £2.92 million in prize money to become Champion Trainer for the third time.

In recent years, Henderson has, once again, become the dominant force in British National Hunt racing, winning the trainers’ title again in 2016/17 and 2017/18, with £2.85 million and £3.48 million in prize money, respectively. Highlights of the latter part of his career have included the Champion Hurdle, twice, with Buveir D’Air in 2017 and 2018, and the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, Arkle Challenge Trophy and Queen Mother Champion Chase with Altior in 2016, 2017 and 2018.

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He may not have been the most prolific trainer of all time – in fact, he saddled just 380 winners – but surely no trainer has had a more profound impact on the sport of National Hunt racing, in such a short space of time, than Michael William Dickinson. Dickinson turned his attention to training in 1980, at the age of 30, taking over the licence at Poplar House in Harewood, West Yorkshire from his father, Tony. He held a National Hunt licence for just four seasons, before relinquishing it to train Flat horses for Robert Sangster in Manton, Wiltshire, but in three of them – 1981/82, 1982/83 and 1983/84 – he was Champion Trainer.

In 1982, Dickinson saddled Silver Buck and Bregawn to finish first and second in the Cheltenham Gold Cup and, the following year, achieved the training feat for which he is probably most famous, filling the first five places, with Bregawn, Captain John, Wayward Lad, Silver Buck and Ashley House. Aside from the Cheltenham Gold Cup, in 1982 Dickinson also won the Peter Marsh Chase with Bregawn, the Queen Mother Champion Chase with Rathgorman, the Hennessy Gold Cup with Bregawn, again, and the King George VI Chase with Wayward Lad. The day after the King George VI Chase, December 27, 1982, he sent out twelve winners, thereby breaking the world record for the most winners in a single story.

The 1982/83 season followed a familiar pattern; Ashley House won the Peter Marsh Chase, Badsworth Boy won the Queen Mother Champion Chase – a race he was to win again in 1984, and 1985 – Sabin Du Loir won the Sun Alliance Novices’ Hurdle and Wayward Lad won the King George VI Chase for the second year running. The 1983/84 season was a little quieter, in terms of major wins but, Badsworth Boy aside, highlights included winning the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle and the Top Novices’ Hurdle with Browne’s Gazette. The following season, Brown’s Gazette started odds-on favourite for the Champion Hurdle, but veered violently left at the start, losing all chance.

To anyone with even a passing interest in National Hunt racing in Britain, Martin Charles Pipe CBE barely requires an introduction. Pipe first took out a public training licence at Pond House Stables – formerly Tuckers Farm, a derelict pig framing facility bought by his father, David, in 1973 – in Nicholashayne, near Wellington, Somerset in 1974. He was far from an overnight success but, when he retired, due to ill health, in April, 2006, he had become, far and away, the most successful trainer in the history of the sport, with 4,180 winners to his name. He was hailed by his contemporaries as the man who, almost single-handedly, revolutionised the way in which National Hunt horses were trained and, in so doing, made National Hunt racing more competitive and, therefore, more popular.

Pipe took 14 seasons to become Champion Trainer for the first time but, having secured his inaugural trainers’ title in 1988/89, would head the National Hunt standings 15 times in total – a sequence interrupted only by David Nicholson in 1993/94 and 1994/95 – before his retirement. In fact, the 1988/89 season was the first of eight in which he trained over 200 winners in a season and his total of 208 winners that year was almost double the previous record.

Pipe saddled 34 winners at the Cheltenham Festival, starting with 66/1 chance Baron Blakeney, ridden by Paul Leach, in the Triumph Hurdle in 1981. During his title-winning years, he recorded four victories in the main ‘championship’ races – Granville Again and Make A Stand in the Champion Hurdle, in 1993 and 1997, respectively and Balasani and Cyborgo in the Stayers’ Hurdle, in 1994 and 1996, respectively – and, while the Cheltenham Gold Cup and the Queen Mother Champion Chase remained elusive, he was leading trainer, outright, at the Cheltenham Festival in 1991, 1997, 1998 and 2002.

Interestingly, Sir Michael Ronald Stoute received his knighthood, in 1998, in recognition of services, not to horse racing, but to tourism in his native country of Barbados. Nevertheless, Stoute has been training, in his own right, in Britain since 1972 and has been a fixture of British Flat racing since first thrust into the public eye by the record 10-length win of Shergar in the 1981 Derby. That was the first year he won the trainers’ title and he has since added nine more, most recently in 2009.

By his own admission, in recent years, he has lacked the firepower, or numbers, to compete with Ballydoyle or Godolphin for the trainers’ championship, but Stoute remains at the top of his profession. Indeed, in June, 2018, he became the most successful trainer, numerically, in the history of Royal Ascot, with 76 winners, after Poet’s Word beat Cracksman in the St. James’s Palace Stakes.

Aside from the ill-fated Shergar – who also won the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes in 1981, but was kidnapped from Ballymany Stud, Co. Kildare two years later and never seen again – highlights of his early title-winning seasons included his second Derby winner, Sharastani, in 1986. In 1989, Stoute won his first 1,000 Guineas with Musical Bliss, while Zilzal won four major races, including the Sussex Stakes and the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.

Having won the trainers’ title again in 1994 and 1997, Stoute entered the new century in flying form, winning half a dozen domestic Group 1 races – including his fourth 2,000 Guineas with King’s Best – in 2000 to become Champion Trainer for the sixth time. Indeed, the Noughties proved to be a particularly lucrative period for the master of Freemason Lodge, with four more trainers’ titles in 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2009. During that period, he saddled his third and fourth Derby winners, Kris Kin in 2003 and North Light in 2004, finally laid his St. Leger hoodoo to rest, after 25 failed attempts, with Conduit in 2008 and achieved a remarkable 1-2-3 with Conduit, Tartan Bearer and Ask in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes in 2009.