PAUL Nicholls could not hide his delight after Newbury’s Grade 1 Challow Hurdle over the Christmas period. He won with No Drama This End (Walk In The Park), and this was his fifth win in the race in the last six years.

He won it recently with Bravemansgame, Stage Star, Hermes Allen and Captain Teague, while Cornish Rebel and Denman were earlier victors. Could No Drama This End be as good, or better, than these? Nicholls believes he can be.

He said afterwards: “He is right up there with other Challow winners. He’s had three runs over hurdles, and he’s won two Grade 2s and a Grade 1, and none of them achieved that. I’m not saying he’s Denman [who won the race 20 years ago], but in 10 years I might. If I had one that might be like him, if we’re lucky, then he could be. He’s got it all, and he’s exciting.”

Nicholls went on: “He’s very special. We’ll go straight to the [Cheltenham] Festival. He’s shown that he’s effective on good ground over two and a half miles, but we’ll cover both options. To back him up again, three weeks after another, has not been ideal. It’s not been easy to get him right for today, but I can give him a break now and get him better.”

Just turned six, the grey No Drama This End carries the familiar McNeill Family colours, and they race the gelding with Chris and Giles Barber. After his penultimate win, Max O’Neill said that he believed No Drama This End was potentially the best the family has owned, and suggested that we might see him next in the Challow Hurdle – and so it came to pass.

Dale Adams and her daughter Lauren

Bred by The Irish Field contributor Dale Adams, alongside her husband Gary, No Drama This End sold three years ago from Ashwood Stud at the Goffs Arkle Sale for €26,000 to Will Biddick, and that recently-retired champion rider turned him into a sale star after the gelding won his only start in a point-to-point. Biddick sold him on for £160,000 to Tom Malone and Paul Nicholls. New Year’s Eve 2024 saw No Drama This End win a bumper at Warwick, and we next saw him contest the Grade 1 Weatherbys Champion Bumper, finishing nine lengths off the sensational Bambino Fever.

Nicholls chose October’s Grade 2 Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham for No Drama This End’s hurdling debut, which he won in style. He added a second Grade 2, this one at Sandown, and this time in a race won by Lossiemouth in 2021.

No Drama This End has close-up Grade 1 credentials. In fact, he is the son of a Grade 1 winner. His dam La Segnora (Turgeon) won eight times over jumps in France and her biggest win came in the Grade 1 Grand Prix d’Automne Hurdle at Auteuil. She was also useful over fences and was a Grade 3 winner in that code. No Drama This End is the best of her four winners, though the quartet share one thing in common, they are all sons of Walk In The Park (Montjeu).

Immediate family

Sandown racecourse has been good to this immediate family, and La Segnora’s half-brother Le Patriote (Poliglote) put in a career-best performance to win the Grade 3 Swinton Hurdle there for Richard Newland. That gelding won twice in France before moving to England where he took his career win tally to eight. A half-sister to La Segnora, La Vista (Kendargent), showed little ability herself on the racecourse, but is dam of a leading three-year-old hurdler of 2025 in France, Olga De Viev (Latrobe). Her two victories were gained in the Grade 2 Prix Sagan Hurdle and Grade 3 Prix Magne Hurdle, both run at Auteuil.

While recent generations of the female family have shown itself to be best with its runners over jumps, it hails from a very successful pedigree that has been prominent on the flat. No Drama No End’s fourth dam Luth D’Or (Noir Et Or) was a listed winner and group-placed in France, and the star of her seven winners was Lune D’Or (Green Tune). She won the Group 1 Premio Lydia Tesio in Italy, the Group 2 Prix de Malleret in France, and placed in the Group 1 Yorkshire Oaks in England.

Lune D’Or has established her own successful branch of this family. She is best known for her son Fierement (Deep Impact). He won the Group 1 Kikuka Sho, the Japanese St Leger, at three, and twice captured the Group 1 Tenno Sho (Spring). He was the champion older horse in Japan in 2020. Lune D’Or’s grandson Inns Of Court (Invincible Spirit) will be more familiar in this part of the world. He relocated to Italy last year after five seasons at Tally-Ho Stud. A Group 2 winner, he was second twice in Group 1 company.

Champion sire

What is left to say about Walk In The Park? The champion sire has been accorded many superlatives that I simply could not add to them. The fact that Coolmore is striving to find a son of his worthy of going to stud says as much about what he means to them than any words I could write. In December, Coolmore’s Gerry Aherne spoke of the sire and his offspring.

Aherne said: “[His offspring] have a bit of class, and that comes from Montjeu. Montjeu had that x-factor himself when he was racing and he’s passed it down. We have it through Camelot on the flat and now we have it through Los Angeles and Luxembourg. Walk In The Park might be coming towards the end, but we have a lot of young lads coming through behind him.

“We won’t have [Walk In The Park] for ever; we are going to treat his stock with kid gloves and do the best by them. If they can be early then well and good, and if they need time, we will give them time. Walk In The Park is a remarkable stallion at his age and let’s hope we can keep him going for a year or two yet. Standing one of his sons is the dream.”

Walk In The Park is days, or weeks at most, away from siring his 100th blacktype performer, between his flat and National Hunt runners. With his Challow Hurdle success, No Drama This End credited the stallion with his twelfth Grade 1 winner. What a group it is, and two-thirds of that dozen struck at the highest level on more than one occasion.

Incredible total

Special mention has to be made of Jonbon, with an incredible total of 10 Grade 1 successes, nine coming over fences. He made the Melling Chase at Aintree, the Tingle Creek at Sandown and the Celebration Chase, also at Sandown, his own, winning each of these contests twice. Jonbon’s exceptional full-brother Douvan won seven Grade 1 races, and both geldings are sons of Star Face (Saint Des Saints).

Another seven-time Grade 1 winner by Walk In The Park is Min, a Cheltenham, Punchestown and Aintree hero. Facile Vega’s four Grade 1 wins consisted of two bumpers and two hurdle wins, while Final Demand over Christmas took his Grade 1 haul to three. Last year’s Cheltenham Gold Cup hero Inothewayurthinkin is a dual Grade 1 winner, as are Croke Park and Spillane’s Tower.

The quartet of single Grade 1 winners by Walk In The Park is made up of our featured gelding, No Drama This End, Aurora Vega, Ashroe Diamond and Ginto. The list will only keep growing.