Joe Tizzard: “Ultragold can go well in the Cross Country.”
Published:
Wednesday
Mister Malarkey has improved all season. If you’d told me when he won at Plumpton earlier in the season that he’d be running in the RSA Chase I wouldn’t have believed it.
But he’s improved no end and at Ascot he beat a solid field, and he beat them well. He has a lovely running style as he sits behind the bridle and doesn’t do anything unless you ask him to, so that will help him finish his race.
I still think he needs to take another step forward to be competitive against the likes of Delta Work. His owners Malcolm and Wendy Hazell are so thrilled. They’ve been with us for years and have owned plenty of horses but this is the best they’ve had and they are understandably very excited.
Drinks Interval was bullying horses that weren’t fit at the start of the season and she ended up getting a mark in the 140s which she deserved as she’d won her three novice chases.
Wherever she goes it’s not easy for her so she’s entitled to run at the Festivals. She’ll pop out and sit very handy, and she shouldn’t be the outside of the field. She does need to take a step forward though
We were having a go at the Champion Hurdle with Vision Des Flos but he wasn’t quite good enough so we have decided to run in the Coral Cup. He won very well in the National Spirit last time.
The Coral Cup is not an easy race to win but he’s a seasoned Festival horse. He was upsides at the last in the Supreme last year and sometimes it takes a horse like that to win a Coral Cup.
Supasundae won the Coral Cup a couple of years ago and he’s become Grade 1 horse since then. Vision Des Flos is a similar type of horse and I think he’s capable of winning a Grade One one day, so he can go well with a bit of luck in running. We think this trip suits him better than over two miles.
Highest Sun is quite an interesting horse in this. He won well last time, he’s improved all season and he was bought with a nice reputation.
He’s still filling out and these French horses sometimes take a little while to fully acclimatise. So I think we’ve still to see the best of him. Hopefully he has enough experience to travel well and then he could be slightly unexposed.
He’s heading for the Grand National and we were trying to decide what to do with him, so we took him down to school over the cross country course two weeks ago and I’ve never seen a horse take so well to it. He absolutely loved it.
Harry was going to take a lead but then ended up in front and he went up and down the bank easily and loved every second of it.
I think the nature of this race will really suit him as he jumps for fun and I think it gives him a chance to breathe, a bit like running over the National fences in the Topham, compared to the park courses. I’m sure he’ll take to it and I think he’ll run a nice race. He has Tiger Roll to beat but our boy can go well.
He’s a very smart bumper horse and is a listed winner around Cheltenham already. We purposefully save him for this after winning there.
He had a racecourse gallop at Wincanton a fortnight ago and he went really well. He’s ready to go and there are only 14 runners in the race.
We are really excited about running him. You never know what you are going to come up against in these bumpers but he’s as good as any of the English horses.
Joe
