Joe Tizzard: “The Coral Welsh National conditions really play to Native River’s strengths”
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Our ambassador gives us an insight ahead of next month’s race
In his latest Coral blog, assistant trainer Joe Tizzard has discussed the team’s desire to win the Coral Welsh Grand National again, giving his thoughts on their four entries for this year’s race.
We have won the Coral Welsh Grand National twice in recent years, and it is one of the big races over Christmas that we target and we want to be winning.
We always aim horses at the race, and good horses too, and won the race with our Gold Cup winner, Native River. We’ve had a lot of fun when we’ve won the race and we hope to win it again.
Native River is in beautiful form at home. We have the Many Clouds Chase at Aintree, the race he won last year, as the first target for him. He schooled this morning and he will definitely be ready for that and then it’s a case of what options we will look at for him.
We spoke to Garth and Anne Broom yesterday and we agreed that we would give him an entry for the Coral Welsh Grand National, as we want that option for him. He’s not getting any younger and with the Gold Cup as competitive as it is, I’m not sure he’s going to win another one, so we wanted to give ourselves a Christmas big race option for him when there isn’t a lot else.
He’s rated 168, which is obviously a lot of weight, but the conditions of the Coral Welsh Grand National really play to Native River’s strengths as we have seen before.
We don’t have to decide now, we can take a look at the weights and the ground and the opposition nearer the time and make a decision then.
Copperhead (Coral odds 12/1)
He was disappointing at Wetherby but he seems in really good form now and he’s heading for the Ladbrokes Trophy. His form as a novice last year seems to tick a lot of boxes for a Welsh National horse.
He’s a big, long-striding, horse who gallops all day. His first target is the Ladbrokes Trophy but this would be the next logical option. We won both races with Native River and Elegant Escape finished second in the Ladbrokes Trophy and then won the Coral Welsh National, so we hope to take the same route with Copperhead.
Christmas In April (Coral odds 25/1)
He’s a real stayer who ran well in the Southern National at Fontwell on Sunday. He always takes a race to get fit.
He won two long distance Nationals last year and, although he is creeping up the handicap, he is a horse that will get in off a low weight which is always an advantage in the Welsh National. He will love the extreme distance and could run well in it.
Lamanver Pippin (Coral odds 20/1)
Lamanver Pippin ran a blinder on his comeback at Cheltenham last weekend. He won at Chepstow last year and right after the race we talked about the Welsh National for him.
He was third in the National Hunt Chase at Cheltenham Festival and this looks the right race for him.
Coral Welsh Grand National
12/1 Copperhead, Potters Corner
14/1 Notachance, Ramses De Teillee
16/1 At The Acorn, Cloudy Glen, Native River, Yala Enki, Truckers Lodge, Sam Brown, Lord Du Mesnil
20/1 Discorama, Springfield Fox, Newtide, The Two Amigos, Deise Aba, Dominateur, Lamanver Pippin
View the latest horse racing odds.
All odds and markets correct as of date of publication
