Nicky Henderson

The top-level success tells its own story. Henderson has won 90 Class 1 races — the very best races in the sport — at tracks including Cheltenham, Ascot and Sandown Park. Three of those came in quick succession this spring: Newbury on 7 February, Ascot on 14 February, and Cheltenham on 10 March 2026. Winning at that level once is an achievement; winning three times in five weeks at three different prestigious venues suggests a yard firing on all cylinders.

At the heart of that success is one extraordinary horse. Constitution Hill has won 12 of the 16 races Henderson has trained him for — a remarkable three-from-four hit rate across their time together. That kind of partnership, where horse and trainer seem perfectly aligned, is rare. When it works this well, it has a way of defining careers.

The jockey side of the operation leans heavily on Nico de Boinville, and for good reason. De Boinville has ridden 167 times for the yard and won on 40 of them — 24% of the time, or close to 1 in every 4 rides. That's a meaningful relationship built on trust and familiarity, and those numbers reflect it.

There are a couple of more specific details worth noting. Henderson's horses tend to perform particularly well on normal ground conditions — they've won 2 from 3 races in those circumstances, a 67% conversion rate that hints at horses well-suited to standard going. And Plumpton, a tight, sharp little track in East Sussex, has been quietly productive: 4 winners from 9 runners there. It's a long way from Cheltenham in terms of prestige, but it shows a yard that knows how to place its horses shrewdly at every level.