It’s been a week when equine recruitment has been in the spotlight.

Well, that of the Paul Nicholls team, with news that his daughter Megan is to take a more prominent role in trying to source the fresh talent aimed at getting the Ditcheat team moving in the right direction again.

It’s not as though his owners haven’t been digging deep, even away from the Chris Giles dispersal sale where the wagons were circled and everything that they wanted back at base camp returned there, whatever the price.

But a stuttering start to 2025, a Cheltenham Festival team that’s as threadbare as it’s ever been, means the former champion trainer is ready to make a change. Tom Malone will no longer be the go-to man when it comes to scouring France, Ireland and the UK looking for the next diamond within myriad rocks.

“Everything has been blown out of proportion a bit. Megan’s been trying to find a few for me and she’s obviously busy with TV commitments, but she’s found some nice horses for others and is keen to find me some,” Nicholls told Thursday’s Nick Luck Daily Podcast.

“Tom’s found some nice horses over the years, but over the last three or four years we’ve probably lacked some stars and we’ve got to keep looking forward. Tom has lots of clients and doesn’t just work for me, so I can use who I want as well and will look down other avenues.

“It’s no big thing. Tom and I have always been mates and will continue to be, but it doesn’t mean I’ve got to use him to buy everything. It goes without saying we could’ve had a better record over the past two or three years.”

Those two or three years have seen a period of unprecedented Irish domination, Willie Mullins became the first man to be champion trainer on both sides of the Irish Sea since the late, great Vincent O’Brien.

And the owners who regularly source the best talent, are in the main Irish and understandably have the vast majority of their horses trained in the country.

But there are some who keep their eye in over in England too, but Nicholls is feeding on the crumbs.

Take JP McManus for example. He must be the biggest owner the jumping game has ever seen and despite his star-studded arsenal back home, 15 individual British trainers have had runners for him this domestic season.

Nicholls has had one, Soir De Gala, a summer jumper who was last seen in August.

And it’s very clear when it comes to allocating the horses over here, Seven Barrows is the first port of call for the ones with the highest ceilings.

Of McManus’s ten top-rated horses trained in the UK this season with Timeform, seven are with Nicky Henderson. They range from Jonbon and a huge rating of 174 to William Hill Hurdle heroine Joyeuse on 134.

The only other three on the list are Iroko and Jagwar for Oliver Greenall and Josh Guerriero, and Johnnywho who represents the O’Neills.

It’s even more stark when it comes to Jim and Marie Donnelly. Their jumps horses are shared between Henderson and Willie Mullins, no other British or Irish base. And no owner has shown a Midas touch to rivals theirs of late, even taking the deepest of pockets into account.

Susannah and Rich Ricci are based in the UK but their horses aren’t. Well, that’s not actually true but the vast majority are at Closutton.

They started out with three yearlings bought at Tattersalls in partnership with Michael Buckley and Paul Shanahan and trained by Jamie Osborne.

Then there was a horse with Henderson, in partnership with Buckley, followed by Palixandre in their own name and silks at the same yard in the 2018/19 season.

Nicky Richards asked for a horse at the same time and got one with Wilhelm Vonvenster.

Since then, it’s been about Venetia Williams with Final Dancer, the soon to be launched Kingbel Du Lion and of course Royale Pagaille.

Gigginstown don’t have horses in trained in Britain. Simon Munir and Isaac Souede have moved the vast majority of their operation to Ireland, Henderson and Nigel Twiston-Davies overseeing the horses that remain here.

No Nicholls, no Dan Skelton.

Basically, if there is a big money, exciting new recruit from one of the powerhouses heading to these shores over the summer it will be to Henderson.

Maybe The New Lion can put Skelton on the Martinstown radar this spring when he carries the green and gold silks into battle at the major festivals, but if you’re going to the sales ring, the stud farms, the racing yards of France and point-to-point fields of Ireland without the support of the owners who have the seats at the top table and first refusal on so much talent, it makes a difficult job almost impossible.

They say these things are cyclical. Nicholls and his big-spending owners of the day ruled supreme in early 2000s, but that era seems a long time ago now.

It’s because it is.

And now Bryan Drew and Professor Caroline Tisdall have horses with Mullins for the first time.

Final Demand goes to Cheltenham as favourite for the Turners Novices’ Hurdle, the much-vaunted Gameofinches makes his debut in the bumper at Punchestown on Sunday.

The sort of horses any trainer would dream of having. And that dream is an expensive one unless you do find the odd diamond along the way.

Malone hasn’t, and now another team are about to have a go at what’s become one of the hardest jobs in National Hunt racing.

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