'I take flak and it frustrates me - but I'm not going to wreck another horse'

Senior writer Lee Mottershead recently caught up with top jumps trainer Nicky Henderson and this interview has been made free to read for users of the Racing Post app and billed as our Sunday Read. Members' Club Ultimate subscribers have access to fantastic interviews like this every week. Click here to sign up.

Nicky Henderson faces a decision.

It is not about whether to run Constitution Hill at Newcastle, Cheltenham or anywhere else, although talk of such important judgement calls will soon cause his temperature to rise. The jumps legend is about to be interviewed across the crisp white linen-covered table of a small London restaurant. Henderson and his wife, Sophie, will then head off to visit an owner, one of many who utilise the services of a six-time champion trainer.

First he must decide what to eat. That is not an altogether straightforward process.

"Salt and pepper squid," says Sophie, reading out potential food options for her husband. "Crab salad, prawn cocktail, lobster linguini. No, it's got garlic in it, you won't like that."

Henderson settles on the garlic-free prawns as the conversation advances to the reason why the menu was delivered for him in audio form. Over the course of nearly two hours, he talks passionately, frankly and emotionally on a number of subjects, the outcome being a fascinating self-portrait. What he says provides deep insight into a man who in recent years has been the subject of widespread admiration but also some stinging and increasingly personal criticism. Across all that time he has been a man fearful of going blind.

Sophie has accompanied him to London partly because it would be unsafe for the partner she treasures to visit the capital alone. It is now six months since Henderson underwent life-changing eye surgery that has very probably extended a training career that began in 1978 but looked destined to be cut cruelly short by macular degeneration and glaucoma. The reality is that as recently as this year's Cheltenham Festival, the 71-year-old was barely able to see.

Nicky Henderson: happiest at home in Lambourn but fascinating when talking across a London lunch table

"My eyes used to be so fantastic that Jim Wilson called me Popeye at school," says Henderson.

"Unfortunately they started to deteriorate ten years ago and there is no cure for the problem. I thought I would finish up in darkness. It reached the stage where it was pointless going racing because I could only see the big screen through binoculars. I remember standing on top of the Lambourn Downs with the dogs one evening, looking across to our schooling ground. I already couldn't see the view and thought I would never see it again.

"The first thing the condition takes out is people's faces, which is why Soph would always tell me who I was near. My fear was I would walk past someone without acknowledging them and they would think I was being rude. There could be nothing worse than that. It's something I would hate because I don't think I'm like that."

On the recommendation of his regular consultant, Henderson sought the advice of another expert at the London Eye Hospital. It initially led to him receiving eye injections that had to be administered with such force his head crashed against the back of the bed. Then, on the final day of Doncaster's May Sale, having spent the week informing vendors there was no point them trotting horses up for 100 yards because he could not see that far, he underwent surgery. A long-range lens was inserted into the left eye – and it worked.

"Driving home I was able to see the car in front and even the number plate, which I certainly couldn't have done before," says Henderson, whose right eye has not been so receptive to the treatment. Even so, where he is now is considerably better than where he was a few months ago. Indeed, he admits that his failing eyesight had led him to believe early retirement was inevitable.

"The time was definitely going to come," he says. "I fear it still is going to come, but we've managed to put it back.

"A lot of people say that in the circumstances I should slow down, but what would be the point of that? Why would I want to slow down when I've got such wonderful horses to train? I'm not giving them to anybody else."

Sophie brings out a gadget that magnifies the written word and is used when Henderson goes through entries in the Racing Post.

"Before the operation there was always that worry in the head about how much longer we could carry on," she says, adding: "Now he can see again, we've suddenly got all the excitement back."

No horse currently generates excitement more than Constitution Hill, the outrageously impressive 22-length winner of last season's Supreme Novices' Hurdle and now red-hot favourite to dethrone Honeysuckle in the Unibet Champion Hurdle.

"He really is the most ridiculously straightforward horse," says Henderson. "Unlike Sprinter Sacre, Altior and Shishkin, there is nothing flash about him. His life simply revolves around eating, sleeping and working. Any clown could train him. We can only dream what he might be. He could go chasing tomorrow if that was what we wanted. I would ride him over a fence myself."

Sophie interjects immediately.

"You're not," she says. Henderson continues with the prawn cocktail.

Wherever Michael Buckley's young star begins his season will not be where he was expected to start. Along with fellow Cheltenham-winning novices Edwardstone and L'Homme Presse, Constitution Hill was withdrawn from his intended target at Ascot on Saturday. It fired up critics who have lambasted the master of Seven Barrows prior to the last two runnings of the Tingle Creek Chase.

Stable star Constitution Hill poses with Sean O'Briain at the controls as Nicky Henderson watches on

On the eve of the 2020 Tingle Creek, Henderson scratched Altior, citing ground he compared to a "bottomless glue pit". Last year he opted to reroute Shishkin just over a week before the Sandown showpiece, determining the previous campaign's Arkle hero was "not quite there".

Those announcements were added to the list of crimes some claim Henderson has committed against jump racing. They say he cares only about four days in March and fails to properly respect the sport's winter highlights. Asked if he is troubled by such accusations, Henderson replies very much in the affirmative and focuses his mind on the day in 2019 when Altior was defeated by Cyrname in a heavily promoted Ascot Grade 2 chase.

"Yes, it frustrates me," says Henderson. "Very much so. Really very much indeed.

"Running Altior against Cyrname first time out in a bog at Ascot was madness. I only did it because of the sport's public perception. That race completely finished Altior. It was the end of him. I would have paid millions to take him out, but I couldn't do that because of the public and Ascot. I didn't have the heart to do it.

"I know I take some flak, but I'm not going to make the same mistake twice. I'm not going to wreck another horse like that. Running Altior that day is the biggest racing regret I have, 100 per cent. That race at Ascot left a mark on me, it sure did. For that reason, I only want to say that Shishkin is entered in this year's Tingle Creek and I've got every desire to run him, but I'm only going to do that if he's happy and I'm happy."

Sophie Henderson is most definitely not happy.

"Nobody stops to think how gutted he is when he can't run them," she says, emitting a sense of exasperation that also fills her husband's face. What is certain is the big decisions are not taken lightly.

"I go to bed worrying most nights," reveals Henderson. "I've taken sleeping pills every night without fail for the last 20 years. I know it's all in my head, but if I didn't take them it would be a waste of time going to bed.

"If I wake up during the night I find it impossible to go back to sleep. They always say all your problems seem worse during the night but come the morning they are nothing like so bad as they were at two o'clock in the morning.

"We actually got some help from a lovely man in London. What he prescribed aren't drugs, I promise you, and they aren't addictive, but they're a bit like little happy pills. Since I've been taking them I can get straight back to sleep."

Of the many things that keep him awake, the 150 horses in his care top the list, yet there are many more.

"For six months since April, all I heard him saying is: 'When is it going to rain? When is it going to rain?'" laments Sophie, crossing one of the items off the list. A few others could be wrapped up in Henderson's desire not to offend, something shown by the urgency with which he returns missed calls made by those in the media.

Not surprisingly, if he worries about the feelings of journalists, he really does fret about causing distress to owners, something that in part explains why he has an aversion to saddling multiple members of the Seven Barrows equine squad in the same races.

"It's always an embarrassing situation when you have two runners because a stable jockey can only ride one horse, which means the one he doesn't ride becomes the second string," says Henderson.

"I hate any owner to think their horse is a second string. It's something that very much does keep me awake at night. Owners often think their horse is the best thing they've ever had in their lives, so I detest the idea they would feel he isn't even our stable's best hope in a race. It worries me because I don't want to upset anyone."

There are, of course, times when such meetings are inevitable, most commonly at Cheltenham, where the opening race of the 2022 festival featured a clash between Constitution Hill and Jonbon. In itself, that encounter reflected a further awkward aspect of Henderson's job.

Had the trainer's number-one rider Nico de Boinville had a choice of mounts, he would have selected Constitution Hill, yet it was a choice that was not available to him. A number of the stable's horses belong to individuals who have retained jockeys, while even those who do not such as Jonbon's owner, JP McManus, prefer to pick their own riders. That is De Boinville for some horses, but not for all.

"I'm always very sensitive to the jockey situation, but there wasn't an issue in the Supreme because Nico was riding Constitution and JP wanted Aidan Coleman for Jonbon," says Henderson.

"It's very difficult to keep everybody happy. Nico is one of the greatest horsemen you'll ever see and a wonderful jockey. He is totally committed to Seven Barrows and would school from morning to midnight if you asked him, yet there's an awful lot of horses he doesn't ride. Of course he minds, and I would like him to be able to ride more of them, but he understands.

"I'm very lucky to have him and James Bowen, who is fantastic and will be a champion jockey. They are two of the nicest, loveliest, most loyal people you'll ever come across. They are team men and I adore them both."

Nicky Henderson hails the amazing Sprinter Sacre after his comeback win in the Shloer Chase

It was in the hands of De Boinville that Henderson's finest work enjoyed a glorious renaissance. In his pomp, Sprinter Sacre reached levels of brilliance that precious few jumpers have ever attained. On returning from heart problems he looked finished, but in what proved to be his farewell campaign there were four fabulous victories, including a second success in the Queen Mother Champion Chase that left Cheltenham's audience in raptures and the winning trainer in bits.

"Goodness, I'm a crier," admits Henderson. "You shouldn't come up to me as I leave a funeral or memorial service, or even after a big race. I am desperate at times like that. The emotional days are ferocious for me and I do struggle."

That becomes evident when mention is made of little Top Notch, a stable darling who died last year after rupturing his stomach.

"Don't, I can't talk about it," says Henderson, who wells up at the thought of his absent friend.

"Losing any horse is bad, but Top Notch was everybody's mate," he says. "Sarah Shreeve looked after both him and L'Ami Serge. We lost them within three months of each other. When Top Notch died, I cried for Sarah as well as for the horse. Losing them like that hurts like hell."

At this point, his wife brings up a memory of her own.

"He is very involved with the horses," she says. "They aren't just animals in boxes. I remember a time when he was terribly worried about a filly. There was one night when I couldn't find him at three in the morning. I went out to the yard and he was sat in this filly's box. He said he couldn't sleep, so he thought he might as well talk to the filly. His horses are him. They are people to him."

With lunch long since eaten, two country folk are becoming late for their next appointment. Darkness has fallen in London, yet Henderson has spent our time together helping to paint a colourful, vivid and multi-layered picture of himself. This interview has been more about him than his horses, yet, as Sophie explained, Henderson and his horses are interchangeable. As such, the final story seems extremely appropriate.

"Empty boxes and empty bridles are awful," says Henderson, casting his mind back to the day six years ago when he called a press conference at Cheltenham to announce the retirement of Sprinter Sacre. He repeatedly came close to tears while revealing the news. Worse was to follow just two hours later when the supremely talented but consistently luckless Simonsig suffered a fatal fall.

"It was the saddest story of a horse who never came home," says Henderson. He then recounts an episode that has been spoken of before but bears repeating, not least because the latest retelling again visibly moves him. It involves both Simonsig and Triolo D'Alene, another Seven Barrows stalwart who in his heyday won the Hennessy Gold Cup and the Topham.

"One was a grey, one was a chestnut," he says. "They spent their summer holidays together in a field with eight more of our best horses, all of them bays. On their first day in the field, Simonsig and Triolo D'Alene were ostracised by the bays. As a result, the two of them lived together as great mates but separate from the rest. Neither had good lungs, so they stayed outside a lot, but for a number of years they also lived in adjacent boxes with no tops on them, which meant they could see each other.

"When Simonsig set off for that last race at Cheltenham, Triolo watched him leave in the horsebox. After we lost Simonsig that day, I knew I wanted to be in the yard when the horsebox returned because I was certain Dave Fehily, who looked after him, would be desperately upset.

"As the horsebox arrived, I was stood by Triolo's box and the one where Simonsig used to live. When Triolo saw the horsebox, he started whinnying. That was the end of me. Triolo thought his mate had come home and he was whinnying for him. He then couldn't understand why he wasn't there.

"It was awful, just awful. That's how much they meant to each other. They were like brothers. Triolo knew something was wrong that night."

Henderson, heart on sleeve as ever, pauses, composes himself and adds: "It's lucky horses can't cry. I can."

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