Topofthegame The Banker As Nicholls Runs Through Festival Team

Today we visited the 10 time British Champion Trainer Paul Nicholls at his yard in Ditcheat, Somerset on a day where all different media outlets visited his stables to get an insight into the sort of team he will be producing for the Cheltenham Festival.

In a day where we walked around the yard, watched various stand out horses on the gallops and got a slight insight as to what horses will be running in what races, we also sat down with the trainer and asked him some quick-fire questions.

Paul Nicholls was a superb host on the day and overall gave the media just enough to go off in terms of narrowing down a certain horse to a certain race but also left us guessing with a few of his animals, with them still having multiple entries at the festival.

His stand out horse and biggest fancy of the week looks to be his Grade 1 RSA Chase hopeful Topofthegame.

This seven year old has only raced twice this season off the back of his superb second at the festival last year just being beat by the Willie Mullins trained Bleu Berry in the Grade 3 Coral Cup.

Topofthegame started his season off at Exeter in a Novice Chase contest in which he missed the start and had to make up the best part of 25 lengths and was only narrowly beaten by the Phillip Hobbs trained Defi Du Seuil.

For a first run of the season it was very impressive and he looked like he would come on a lot for that run, in which he did at Kempton on Boxing Day.

Again, he finished second behind one of the best three mile chasers of the season in La Bague Au Roi for trainer Warren Greatrex but beat some other top class horses and showed a lot of ability.

Since then, Nicholls has explained that he has got some work to do with his jumping but is constantly learning. He is very coy about this horse and looks to be his best pick of the four days.

Nicholls has one of his strongest Cheltenham teams for some time and this has been backed up with how well he has done this season so far.

He see's himself sitting top of the British Trainers Championship just in front of other leading trainer Nicky Henderson by £309,000 in prize money.

Nicholls ran through all of his other festival horses explaining for the most part which horses will be running in what races and also looked ahead to the future, with some of his animals which will be saved for the Aintree Grand National Meeting.

Enjoy the interview below!