Campaign managed to end with a smile after some sad setbacks

In the end it went down to the wire. Yet for a man who claimed just two of the season’s 40 Grade 1 races, Paul Nicholls marshalled his resources to maximum effect during the 2016-17 season.

The Somerset trainer closed the campaign with his trademark flourish, but Nicky Henderson held too many big guns for the ten-time champion.

Henderson’s achievement in claiming a fourth jumps trainers’ title was notable on two fronts. He did so without Sprinter Sacre, by some distance his biggest prize-money earner the previous season, who was retired in November. And he regained the accolade in his 67th year in what is commonly described these days as a young man’s game.