Nicholls fears Mullins in championship race Paul Nicholls is aiming for a 10th trainers' championship but is fearful of Willie Mullins as the season reaches its climax. Mullins looks like sending an ultra-strong raiding party to Aintree this week and it could make for an exciting end to the campaign. The Ditcheat handler told the Telegraph: "At the end of the day if Willie runs all those horses, we've got no chance. "But by the start of Thursday we might be £250,000 in front, I suppose we might get that again by the end of the season, which means Willie has got to win £500,000. He could get that, but it makes it interesting. "I'm not going to change targets and run them everywhere. There is plenty of other good prize-money left at Cheltenham, Sandown, the Scottish National meeting anyway." Gavin Sheehan has been pencilled in to ride Black Thunder in the Crabbie's Grand National on Saturday. Sheehan is poised to competitively link up with champion Nicholls for the first time after having partnered the nine-year-old in a workout at Wincanton last week. The only caveat behind the jockey booking is the fact Black Thunder is due to be put up for auction at the Goffs UK Aintree Sale on Thursday evening. Nicholls will saddle five other horses - Unioniste (Nick Scholfield), Wonderful Charm (Sam Twiston-Davies), Silviniaco Conti (Noel Fehily), Just A Par (Sean Bowen) and Rocky Creek (Andrew Thornton) - in the National. "It will be Gavin's first ride for me, but he rode him in work during the week at Wincanton," Nicholls said. "It just depends if the horse gets sold and what they want to do. A lot can still happen. "They have all schooled over the National fences and it was all good. "The main one is Conti, he's a seven-time Grade One winner, he's very well and trained for the race. "Unioniste has done well, he's a much better horse than he was last year, if he ran well it would be no surprise."
