Pipe's numbers game

O'Brien's victory recognises his dominance across Europe this season, including British victories in the Derby, Oaks, King George and every Group One for juvenile colts that we've got.

But when Noel Chance won the 2000 Cheltenham Gold Cup, jump racing's pinnacle, he only finished 16th in a championship decided, as on the Flat, by money won.

His yard saddled only 15 winners in the 1999-2000 season. Pipe's - a heady mixture of quality and quantity - had sent out a humbling 243, a UK record.

The previous season, Ditcheat handler Paul Nicholls' incredible Cheltenham Festival hat-trick of Gold Cup, Queen Mother Champion and Arkle Chases with See More Business, Call Equiname and Flagship Uberalles had given him a rare whiff of the title. But Pipe simply outgunned him in the closing stages of the season, mopping up prize money in quotidian races with journeymen horses by sheer force of numbers. Although racing enthusiasts are currently pondering who'll be the Gold Cup hero on 14 March, it won't necessarily be Pipe holding that trophy aloft.

He hasn't got one horse in the ante-post betting's top 15 for the race. He's yet to saddle a winner of racing's blue riband and holds off Nicky Henderson only by one as the most successful current trainer at the Cheltenham Festival.

So how do Pipe's three greatest rivals approach the 'new' jumps season when winning the championship is literally an impossible dream? Are they following a different star? Do they believe they can ever topple him? The answer to the last question is a resounding no. Henderson - the only one of the trio to have won the title, in 1985-86 and 1986-87 - puts it most succinctly.

"We never will beat Martin," he said. "I've been lucky enough twice to have been leading trainer, but that was in the post-Michael Dickinson, pre-Pipe era. I'm resigned to the fact I never will be again. I don't even think about it any more. I do my own thing."

Hobbs describes it as "unrealistic" and Nicholls as "not a priority - the Gold Cup matters more".

The reasons boil down to three key but interwoven factors: Pipe's superior number of horses in training, a prize-money system that fails sufficiently to reward quality and a different training ethos.

Pipe has more than 100 horses at Pond House Stables. Hobbs and Nicholls clock in at around 96 and 80 respectively. Henderson's numbers are similar to Pipe's, but he is renowned for a long-term, chaseorientated approach that relies on bringing along young horses very softly, very slowly.

"I've got around 100 horses, but a lot are just youngsters who'll only see the racecourse once or twice this season as part of their growingup process," confirmed Henderson.

Then there's summer jumping. National Hunt racing continues all year round, but Henderson, Nicholls and, to a lesser extent, Hobbs effectively shut up shop from May until the start of October.

You need a different squad for that 'low' season discipline - fastground lovers, not too big and not too good because the prize money doesn't reward the risk. The dropout rate can be high. With so many horses under his roof, Pipe can field a strong summer team and still have a large quota for 'high' season.

"He's playing a different game and I take my hat off to him," said Henderson. "In October, we were already about 75 winners and £300,000-odd behind him and we hadn't even started. It's like giving Istabraq a 20-length start when you'd be pushed to beat him on level terms anyway."

The modern National Hunt season is undoubtedly a game of two halves. The nearest we'll come to unifying them under the current system is for Pipe himself to train a Gold Cup winner.

Meanwhile, the title races vie with paint-drying and trainspotting to grab our attention.