No Hiding Place steps forward for Henderson as curse of small fields continues

No Hiding Place was a rather ironically named winner for trainer Nicky Henderson on a card where only 32 runners took to the course because of the quick conditions.

The five-year-old had been banging on the door on recent starts but the addition of cheekpieces appeared to do the trick as he stayed on best under Alan Doyle to win the 3m½f Starlight Happy Memories Handicap Hurdle.

Nicky Henderson: 'We should have had four or five runners and I had them all lined up but I just couldn’t run them'Credit: Edward Whitaker

Henderson, who took over as chairman of the Starlight charity racedays "about 15 years ago", has seen roughly £3 million raised for the charity in that time.

The trainer is also a frequent winner on this card, but said of his only runner at Kempton: "To be fair to Alan it was his idea to put some cheekpieces on him today and they worked. I thought he might just have won the other day but he just ducked in a little bit."