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Nicky Henderson and Paul Nicholls are the two most successful current trainers at the Festival and, with Betfair offering markets on how many winners they will train at this year's meeting, Timeform's Billy Nash takes a look at their respective chances of success.

Nicky Henderson is the leading current trainer at the Festival having saddled 37 winners since 1985. In fact, he needs just three more winners to join Fulke Walwyn as the most successful trainer in the Festival's history. He took the accolade of leading trainer last year courtesy of wins for Binocular in the Champion Hurdle, Soldatino in the Triumph and Spirit River in the Coral Cup, and all of those are likely to be back this year as part of what promises to be his strongest ever team.

Henderson will be hoping to get an early winner on the board with the hitherto unbeaten over fences Finian's Rainbow in the Arkle. All three of Finian's Rainbow's wins over fences have come in small fields but his form is working out well and he deserves his place towards the head of the market. Binocular has followed the same path to the Champion Hurdle as last year and, though unimpressive at Sandown last time, he is clearly the one to beat. In fact one of his main dangers appears to be his stable companion Oscar Whisky who could hardly have made a bigger impression when winning the Welsh Champion at Ffos Las last month.

Another who will take plenty of beating is Bobs Worth in the Neptune Novices Hurdle on Wednesday. He is already a dual course winner and remains open to further improvement. In fact Wednesday could turn out to be a big day for Henderson as Titan de Sarti and Celtus (Fred Winter) and Ericht (Bumper) are other Seven Barrows representatives with big chances. With Riverside Theatre now out of the Ryanair, Henderson doesn't have many obvious chances at this stage on day three, but Friday promises to be more successful.

Grandouet looks to have a good chance of giving Henderson his sixth Triumph Hurdle win since 1985, whilst Long Run will be bidding to give him his first ever Gold Cup winner. As usual he will field a strong team in the race run in memory of his father, the Johnny Henderson Grand Annual.

Paul Nicholls currently has ten fewer Festival winners to his name than Henderson but it is well worth pointing out that 24 of those winners have come in the last eight years, including a fabulous five-timer in 2009. Nicholls is currently on course to finish the season as Champion trainer for the sixth successive term but he has arguably assembled stronger teams for the Festival than the one he will go to war with this year.

The likes of Al Ferof and Ghizao will be very competitive in the Supreme and Arkle respectively, but Nicholls may have to wait until day two of the meeting for his first winner. Aiteen Thirtythree's form hasn't much substance to it but he looks a big threat to Time For Rupert et al in the RSA Chase, whilst Master Minded is likely to be a warm order in his bid to wrestle back his Queen Mother crown from Big Zeb.

Poquelin in the Ryanair and Big Buck's in the World Hurdle are the pick of Nicholls' fifteen entries on the card on Thursday, while there is also plenty to look forward to on Friday. Nicholls needs just one more victory in the Gold Cup to emulate Tom Dreaper's long standing record of six wins in the race, and the merits of Kauto Star and Denman are well known at this stage. The master of Ditcheat is also likely to have multiply represented in the Triumph Hurdle, with Sam Winner and recent Kempton winner Zarkandar looking the pick of his entries. Just Amazing should also give a good account in the Foxhunter Chase.

With Big Buck's, Master Minded, Poquelin, as well as Kauto Star and Denman, at his disposal, it is difficult to envisage Nicholls not coming away from the Festival with at least three winners. However, that may not be good enough to see him crowned leading trainer as Henderson has a stronger squad numerically and, with his team firing on all cylinders at the moment, there seems some merit in backing Henderson at to have more than three winners at the Festival for only the second time in his illustrious career.

On that basis, Henderson also deserves to be slight favourite in the head to head market and is likely to trade shorter if he draws first blood on Tuesday.

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