ONE IN A MILLION

Published date09 February 2022
His story starts only a few months after the legendary Sprinter Sacre had completed a mighty Cheltenham, Aintree and Punchestown treble in the spring of 2013. As the superstar rested over the summer, his master trainer was on the hunt for more talent and turned his attention to Ireland, but more specifically lot 11 in the Goffs Land Rover Sale. There was no hesitation when he first saw the striking three-year-old son of High Chaparral; Henderson wanted him and paid what seems a rather moderate €60,000 to take Altior back to his Lambourn base

"Minty [bloodstock agent David Minton] does the store horses with me and he gives me a list. As soon as I saw Altior I sent him a text saying 'I'll be buying that horse'," Henderson recalls.

"I liked the breeding side of it but he was just a smashing individual to look at. He was in the market I quite like to be in

because it's affordable. It didn't matter, though. I was always going to buy him."

Altior was one of around a dozen horses brought back from the sale by Henderson and he ended up going to owner Patricia Pugh. It was from this early stage in life that he and jockey Nico de Boinville began a long and brilliant association.

After Altior had been broken in, it was up to De Boinville, then a conditional, to ride him for the first time and unsurprisingly everyone was thrilled with what they witnessed.

"It was obvious from day one that he was very good," Henderson says. "We broke him here and he went out for the summer and came back in with all the other four-yearolds when we started them off after Christmas. We had a bunch of 15 four-year-olds. They all start by doing bits of work together and then when they go that bit quicker you see the cream rise to the top. He was blatantly better than all of the others.

"It was pretty late before he ran in his bumper at Market Rasen, very late in fact. But he was a big horse and he was taking a bit of time. He'd only had one run and, while it wasn't the best bumper, we knew then."

What Henderson knew then was the frightening amount of ability Altior possessed after he thrashed a field of seven in that Market Rasen bumper in

May 2014, scoring by 14 lengths.

Yet despite making a huge impression it was not until the following February that he ran again - when a beaten favourite in a red-hot Newbury bumper - before then finishing sixth when tried in another high-quality bumper at the Punchestown festival.

"That season was all a bit unfortunate but I suppose keeping him in bumpers was a blessing in disguise," the trainer reflects. "He'd had some niggly problems, it was getting late and I did think we'd shelve his novice hurdling until the following season. It was too late to go anywhere significant. We got him ready

nice and...

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