Paul Nicholls: fired by passion and an insatiable hunger to be the best
Julian Muscat on the man who has never hidden his raw ambition
They said it would never happen again. All those mind-boggling landmarks set by Martin Pipe would stand for all time, yet one man has them squarely in his sights.
Perhaps inevitably, he would emerge from the debris of Pipe’s triumphal march. Like a shrub reborn after a forest fire, he has morphed from survival mode into the king of the jungle. It has been a long and tumultuous journey but Paul Nicholls now stands alone.
He has been champion trainer in Britain for 11 of the last 14 seasons. There are no big-race holes in his resume and there is further bad news for those who pursue him as he once pursued Pipe. Nicholls is in thrall to a magic number that will drive him forward indefinitely. He yearns to be the first jumps trainer to reach 4,000 career winners.
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