Paul Nolan
The 2005 Cheltenham Festival is 21 years ago now, but it remains a memorable one for Paul Nolan. He remembers the first day well, Champion Hurdle day. The low and the high. From deflation to elation in the space of two hours.
They fancied Accordion Etoile for the Champion Hurdle that year. We know now the Champion Hurdle that it was, the Hardy Eustace/Harchibald/Brave Inca Champion Hurdle, one of the most memorable Champion Hurdles of the modern era, one of the most memorable horse races. Not many people remember who finished fourth in that Champion Hurdle. Paul Nolan remembers all right.
“I can still see the front page of the Racing Post that morning,” recalls the trainer. “The Magnificent Seven. We were one of the seven, and we finished fourth of the seven. But we could have done better. It was my fault. I told John (Cullen, Accordion Etoile’s jockey) to come wide off the home turn, to get away from the others. I told him that he didn’t want to be getting into a battle with Hardy Eustace and Brave Inca.”
Accordion Etoile travelled strongly down the hill to the second last flight, as well as any of his rivals and better than most, just behind the leaders.
“As it turned out, he had a lovely position on the inside turning at the top of the hill, which he gave up in order to do what I told him to do. He finished a good fourth in the end, but we were gutted.”
Two hours later, before the final race of the day, the inaugural running of the Fred Winter Hurdle, Paul Nolan put the saddle on Dabiroun and legged Nina Carberry up.
“It looked like we had no chance,” he says. “Dabiroun hadn’t even won his maiden hurdle, he had been beaten three times, yet the handicapper gave us a mark of 124, nearly top weight. We said we’d better claim off him, so we got Nina, and she was brilliant.”
An amateur rider, claiming 5lb, never ridden a Cheltenham Festival winner before, taking on AP McCoy and Davy Russell and Barry Geraghty and Richard Johnson and Timmy Murphy and Conor O’Dwyer and her brother Paul. Nina held Dabiroun up through the early stages of the race, took him wide, made her ground on the run down the hill, looked left on the home turn, looked right, hit the front at the last and cleared away on the run up the hill.
“That was some feeling,” recalls Nolan. “Incredible really. After the disappointment earlier in the day, to get your first Cheltenham Festival winner. You’d never forget it.”
You don’t forget your second either, or your third or your fourth. Noble Prince won the first running of the Jewson Chase in 2011, and Mrs Milner won the Pertemps Final in 2021. Then last year, Daily Present battled on bravely to get the better of Johnnywho in the Kim Muir.
“Barry Stone gave Daily Present a super ride, around the inside, his first ride ever in Britain. And it was brilliant for the owners, the DKCR Partnership. They are such loyal supporters of ours, they have been with us through the bad times as well as the good times.”
Daily Present is being aimed at the Kim Muir again this year. He hasn’t been as good this season as he was last season, his trainer tells you, but he is starting to look better at home now, and the better ground should help him.
Thedeviluno is on track, Feet Of A Dancer is on track.
The trainer took those two horses to Doncaster four weeks ago, Thedeviluno for the Grade 2 River Don Novices’ Hurdle and Feet Of A Dancer for the Grade 2 Yorkshire Rose Mares’ Hurdle, and they both won.
“That was just the perfect day,” says Nolan. “Feet Of A Dancer was always going there, and we decided to send Thedeviluno with her. For them both to win was unbelievable. Two Grade 2 races. Sean O’Keeffe rode the two of them, and he was superb on both. And all the lads were there, all the owners.”
Feet Of A Dancer is owned by Cathy Byrne, Thedeviluno is owned by the Youoktodrive Syndicate, which has five members. For two of them, Sean Alley and John McCormack, Thedeviluno is the first horse in whom they have ever been involved on the ownership side. Paul Nolan goes back a long way with the other three members, Jossie Slattery and cousins Roger and Nicky English.
A GAA Hall of Fame inductee, Nicky English has, of course, won All-Ireland titles with Tipperary as a player and as a manager. A six-time All-Star who was Texaco Hurler of the Year and Man of the Match in the All-Ireland Final in 1989, he knows what the pathway to sporting success looks like.
“I first met Paul around about the time that Noble Prince won the Jewson (in 2011),” he says, “and Roger and I have had horses with him since. The Mooch was the best of them until now, but this fellow has taken it to another level.”
The Mooch won the Sandyford Handicap Chase at Leopardstown on Irish Champion Hurdle day in 2016.
“The great thing about Paul is his attention to detail. He's great fun to be around, everyone knows that, and we had a brilliant day at Doncaster last month, but that doesn't happen by accident. His work ethic is second to none. He and his brother James work so well together. Nothing is left to chance.”
Thedeviluno holds entries in the Turners Novices’ Hurdle and in the Albert Bartlett Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival, but he stayed three miles well in the River Don, so the latter is his most likely target.
“He’s in brilliant form,” says his trainer. “I wouldn't mind if the race was tomorrow.”
Feet Of A Dancer has options too at Cheltenham, she is entered in the Coral Cup and the Mares’ Hurdle and the Stayers’ Hurdle. She has good Cheltenham Festival form too, she stayed on well to finish fourth in the Pertemps Final at last year’s festival in a race that wasn’t run to suit.
“We haven’t decided yet where she’ll go. It may be that she would have to take on Lossiemouth and Wodhooh in the Mares’ Hurdle, and that wouldn't be easy. She’d be getting 7lb from the geldings in the Stayers’ Hurdle but that would still leave her with about a stone to find with the top ones. The Coral Cup is over two miles and five furlongs, probably a little short of her best, so we’ll see. She’s in great form though. I think she’s a better mare this year than she was last year.”
Harwa could make the journey from Toberona to Cheltenham in two weeks’ time, and Sandor Clegane and Iceberg Theory and Farfromnowhere and Release The Beast. And others. It could be another memorable Cheltenham Festival.
© The Sunday Times, 22nd February 2026
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