Racing: Nicholls' young Turk leads the new world order

The traditional straight fight between English and Irish horses in the jump racing arena has widened into a three-corner affair. But the impact of French horses at the highest level is not altogether a modern phenomenon, more a case of plus ça change, plus c'est le meme chose. Back in the Fifties and early Sixties, horses like Manitou and Mandarin were flying the tricolore to considerable effect.

Now, as then, wise men are cherrypicking the best from across the Channel, a ploy which reached its financial peak during the week when Martin Pipe paid £340,000 for hurdling star Magnus.

One of the qualities of French horses is that they seem to mature earlier than their British and Irish counterparts and in today's Independent Newspaper Novices' Chase at Cheltenham, the French-bred Armaturk will make his chasing debut at the tender age of four.

However, his trainer, Paul Nicholls, is sure his precocity is as much a matter of environment as heredity. In France, horses are taught to jump the larger obstacles at a young age, and so they do.

"When we had Flagship Uberalles, he raced over fences at four and he was Irish-bred," Nicholls said. "It is a matter of looking at the individual and deciding. None of our babies jump hurdles at home, anyway, as jumping flat and low gets them into bad habits for the future. They either school over the baby fences or the full-size ones."

This afternoon's Grade Two race is the classiest of the early-season two-mile novice contests, as the names of the past two winners, Best Mate and Fadalko, might indicate.

Armaturk (2.15) will be in at the deep end against, in particular, Fondmort, but gets all the allowances.

Nicholls explained: "He has crept up the handicap over hurdles and I would rather run him here with 10st 5lb than with 11st-plus over hurdles. He is not very big, and a bit of a lean type too, but he is very athletic and after Timmy [Murphy] schooled him over our big fences he said he was fantastic."