Paul Nicholls may be the current irresistible force in jump racing but he is no more immune to the immovable object that can get in the way of every trainer.

Kauto Star’s thrilling victory in the Betfair Chase last Saturday may still be fresh in the public’s mind and they are looking forward to the return of Denman in the Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbury this weekend but Nicholls probably already knew all in the garden was not quite the right shade of rosy.

Master Minded’s defeat at Cheltenham two weeks ago had set a quiet alarm bell ringing in the trainer’s mind. Being beaten four lengths by Well Chief, when having to concede 10lbs, was hardly a serious setback to the long-term strategy of the season, which is centred on a third victory in the Queen Mother Champion Chase at Cheltenham next March.

The worry that immediately had the cogs of Nicholls’ mind working was why Master Minded had been hanging badly right-handed? The horse had shown signs of this when he first arrived from France, to the point where left-handed tracks like Cheltenham might have been ruled out. That a horse has a preference for running one way or the other is not unusual and Desert Orchid was one of the more memorable horses with this foible.

He was the undisputed king of right-handed tracks such as Sandown and Kempton, where he won four King George VI Chases, but managed just the solitary victory over the counter-clockwise undulations of Cheltenham – although that win in the 1989 Cheltenham Gold Cup was his signature performance.

However, this time the problem would appear to be of a physical nature with Master Minded changing his lead leg and hanging right in his morning exercise work as he had been at Cheltenham, where another tell-tale sign had been the slackness of the rein in Ruby Walsh’s right hand. “Ruby said he was hanging like a gate the whole way round,” Nicholls said after the race. “I don’t know why but he’s always hung a bit right-handed from the day we had him.”

Nicholls had planned a programme for Master Minded that included the Tingle Creek Chase at Sandown Park a week on Saturday, but that has now been scrubbed in favour of a trip to Newmarket on Thursday for a bone scan to determine what the problem may be. It’s probably a toss-up which result Nicholls may fear most. The detection of an injury could derail the horse’s entire season but if nothing comes to light Nicholls could be left on the road to Cheltenham but not quite sure if he will ever get there – or what may happens if he does. 

Like all trainers Nicholls knows that plans are mainly there to be rearranged. Michael Dickinson, who was champion jumps trainer three times in the 1980s, would often say how good it would be to put a horse’s entire season down on a piece of paper. Then he would laugh as he made the gesture of screwing that imaginary piece of paper into a ball and throwing it away.

Having just done the same Nicholls will now have to start almost from scratch with Master Minded, aiming for a preliminary run in the Game Spirit Chase at Newbury in February but hope he does not follow Dickinson’s methodology entirely. 

Dickinson is of the long and lean variety yet, as he was preparing the horses who were to give him an unprecedented first five in the 1983 Gold Cup, he lost 14lb in weight between Christmas and mid-March. 

Worrying of such a forceful nature is not really the object of the exercise.

Paul Wheeler