No Drama as Nicholls’ runner eases to Winter win

No Drama This End enhanced his growing reputation with a comfortable success in the Betfair Winter Novices’ Hurdle at Sandown.

Ninth in last season’s Champion Bumper, the five-year-old made a big impression on his hurdling debut at Cheltenham last month and while trainer Paul Nicholls was initially minded to wait for the Grade One Challow Hurdle at Newbury over the festive period, he found this £80,000 contest too good an opportunity to miss.

Saddled with a 5lb penalty in his bid for back-to-back Grade Two wins, No Drama This End had to be squeezed along on a couple of occasions by Harry Cobden, but was hard on the bridle by the time he took over from the front-running Top Jimmy jumping the second flight from home.

Cobden looked between his legs for dangers approaching the last and while The Blue Room finished off to good effect, the Nicholls-trained 4-9 favourite eased to a five-length verdict, prompting Coral to make him their 6-1 market leader from 12-1 for the Turners Novices’ Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival.

“We’re obviously very excited about him, we were at Cheltenham and we were before then,” Nicholls told Racing TV.

“There’s been a bit of pressure on me this week because I decided to come here instead of going straight to the Challow, but this is a good race, we’ve won it with some good horses and it was worth running in. He sauntered round and did that very nicely.

“The Challow has been on the agenda but it’s not the be-all and end-all. If he’s right he could run, but if we don’t go to the Challow it’s not the end of the world.

“Cheltenham will be a nice aim if the ground is right and he could always slot in somewhere in between. If he ran in the Challow he’d go straight to Cheltenham, but we’ll just see how he is in the next three weeks.”

Part-owner Max McNeill added: “I don’t think I’ve been as nervous as that on a racecourse for a very long time.

“It’s great to be involved in a horse like this and it’s exciting. I’ve had some good horses, but I don’t think I’ve had one that’s as exciting as this.

“Someone said to me we should let the horses do their talking on the track, it’s difficult when you get asked about it all the time but today he did his talking on the track and it’s great.”