Having learned his trade under Fred Winter, Kim Bailey and David Nicholson, Nigel Twiston-Davies saddled his first winner as a trainer, Last Of The Foxes, at Hereford in 1982. Since those early days, Welsh-born Twiston-Davies has sent out hundreds more winners from his stables at Grange Hill Farm in Naunton, Gloucestshire and has spent most of his career as one of the top half a dozen or so National Hunt trainers in the country.
However, he is probably still best known as the trainer of Imperial Commander, who won a vintage renewal of the Cheltenham Gold Cup, which also featured Kauto Star and Denman, in 2010. In fact, the victory of Imperial Commander initiated a memorable treble, which also included Baby Run, ridden by the trainer’s son Sam, who was just 17 years old at the time, in the Christie’s Foxhunter Chase and Pigeon Island in the Johnny Henderson Grand Annual.
All in all, Twiston-Davies has saddled 17 winners at the Cheltenham Festival, which earns him in joint-seventeenth place, alongside his mentor David Nicholson, in the list of most successful trainers of all time at the Festival. Aside from the Cheltenham Gold Cup, his notable victories include the Weatherbys Champion Bumper with Ballyandy in 2016, the Ryanair Chase with Imperial Commander in 2009, the Neptune Investment Management Novices’ Hurdle three times, with Gaelstrom in 1993, Fundamentalist in 2004 and The New One. He’s also won the RSA Chase and the Pertemps Final twice apiece, with Young Hustler in 1993, Blaklion in 2016 and Rubhahunish in 2000 and Ballyfitz in 2008, respectively.