Racing: Henderson's error puts Caracciola on path of Arkle glory

If Caracciola wins the Irish Independent Arkle Chase on the first day of the Cheltenham Festival, it will further infuriate the vanquished to learn that Nicky Henderson's horse is little more than an accidental chaser, a horse which in other circumstances might be running in something like a County Hurdle.

What could turn out to be a seminal moment not only in Caracciola's career, but also for the novice chasers with which he now comes into contact, occurred on a mid-November Sunday at Cheltenham. Caracciola was quietly fancied for the Greatwood Hurdle that day and was going ominously quietly until challenged by Rigmarole at the last. Then he was quickly beaten.

"We started this year thinking about hurdling and using his handicap mark and only thinking he would jump fences one day," Henderson says from behind his office desk. "He'd won his first race nicely at Sandown and so we went to Cheltenham quite hopefully. But he got wiped out by Rigmarole, getting a lot of weight and, at that stage, we didn't think Rigmarole was anything, not much more than a summer horse. If we couldn't beat that, I thought, it was the end of his hurdling career.

"So we got on and schooled ours over fences. He was very good so off we went to Haydock, where he put up a staggeringly good performance."

That was four weeks out of the Cotswolds and Our Armageddon, who was on a five-timer, was the nearest victim. The runner-up has since won at Haydock to establish himself as an Arkle candidate, but it was a race 15 minutes after Caracciola's fencing debut which most took Henderson's attention. Back at Cheltenham, Rigmarole followed up in the Grade Two Bula Hurdle.

"I thought to myself, jeepers, I shouldn't have switched my horse to chasing," Henderson says. "God, if that's how good Rigmarole was then we were still all right over hurdles."

The switch has not, however, been without compensation. Two days after Christmas, Caracciola went on to make Thisthatandtother, the Arkle ante-post favourite, look as clumsy as his name in the Wayward Lad Novices' Chase at Kempton. It was a definitive display, one which won the then six-year-old December's Royal & SunAlliance Novice Chaser of the Month award, given in association with The Independent. Rather neatly, in soiling the unbeaten record of Paul Nicholls's runner, he was also following on as Thisthatandtother had collected the November award for his success in the Independent Newspaper Novices' Chase at Cheltenham.

Caracciola is the first German-sourced horse ever to appear in the Henderson ranks. A winner on the Flat on the Continent, he was an animal which appealed to the trainer because of his perceived Rhineland steel. "We've always known the German horses have these tough pedigrees, tough families. You can go back to Lord Howard de Walden, who was breeding from German-bred mares 30 or 40 years ago," Henderson says. "I thought he was a very nice horse from the moment I saw him."

Yet, despite his genes and background, it became apparent there was a minor flaw in Caracciola and even a hint of brittleness about the horse. "He was very good to start with, but a pattern developed," Henderson says. "He kept winning his ordinary race and then, every time we upped him a grade, it seemed he wasn't quite up to it. We came back and won an ordinary one, but he couldn't take going back up."

Back at Kempton, earlier this month, over course and distance, Caracciola indeed appeared a little jaded. He did not look either like the horse of old or a 1-3 prospect as he struggled into second behind Palua.

"It was disappointing he got beaten the other day because I would like to have gone through with a clean sheet, but it might have been the old hurdling malaise and we had gone one too many," Henderson says. "Mick [Fitzgerald] got straight off him. I'm not going to make excuses. The other horse just beat us. But ours didn't jump anything like as well as he has done the first two times and he was just a little sore behind. Mick felt he didn't pull up right.

"I even thought over the first few fences that he seemed to be dragging his hind legs, whereas normally his ears are pricked and he wants to take Mick there. He just didn't look anything like as happy. But we haven't found anything and I can't say he is hopping around lame.

"He's having his mid-term break, which he would always have had anyway. If we freshen him up I'd like to think he'd come out and win again."

As he showed himself off in the main Seven Barrows yard this week Caracciola certainly did not appear spoilt goods. He looked as if he was on vacation, with very good reason. "He'll have three weeks doing nothing, then come along quietly and almost certainly go straight to Cheltenham, though he's the sort of horse who could have a spin round the racecourse two weeks before," Henderson says. "He almost certainly won't run between now and March.

"As far as Cheltenham goes, we've beaten Thisthatandtother and we know he's good, just like the Irish horse [Tom Taaffe's Kicking King]. I wouldn't say we wouldn't have others to go there as well, like Non So and Chauvinist and probably a whole army of them will come into the calculations so, more than anything else, we have got to concentrate on what we're doing."

Henderson, in fact, has three others among the 42 entries for the Arkle Trophy in Lilium De Cotte, Nas Na Riogh and No Shenanigans. It is a race in which he has previous, having won it with Remittance Man (1991), Travado (1993) and Tiutchev (2000). It is also a race which could restore his Festival fortunes. Henderson missed out at the big games last year, albeit narrowly, for only the second time since See You Then collected the first of his three consecutive Champion Hurdles in 1985.

Nicky Henderson likes his chances in the Arkle, he likes the prospects of Caracciola, the accidental chaser. "We've had a fair few horses in this race, a few of them winners, and he's certainly up there with them," the trainer says. "Very much so."