Joe Tizzard: I think he’s our best novice hurdler
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Trainer and Coral ambassador Joe Tizzard discusses the prospects of his four runners at Exeter on Friday afternoon.
It’s a new spot in the calendar for Exeter’s big Haldon Gold Cup day, a meeting we’ve always enjoyed having runners at, and the slight switch of dates hasn’t changed that, with an exciting quartet of runners going there. We start with Diamond Ri in the two mile novice hurdle. He bolted up in his only Bumper at Warwick in March, in a really good time, and I think he’s one of, if not the, best novice hurdler we’ve got.
We were going to Wetherby with him last Friday but that was called off, and opted to come here rather than Newbury on Thursday. He’s schooled really well at home, but this is his first run over hurdles obviously, so what we want to see is him jump well, enjoy a nice clear round, and if he gets into a nice rhythm, he hopefully shouldn’t be too far away.
The Changing Man won first time up at Ffos Las last season, and followed that up with victory at Uttoxeter, so we know he goes well fresh. Exeter is a lovely track to start horses over fences. He is wrong at the weights with Grey Dawning and Stay Away Fay on their hurdles form, but the first six fences all come uphill, so they tend not to catch horses out like downhill fences can, so we’re happy to start him here.
He’s jumped like a stag at home, so I’m confident he can be a better chaser than he was a hurdler, but again, this is his starting point, so we want to see him jump round well, and I’m sure he’ll improve for the outing.
We run two in the day’s feature. We gave Brendan [Powell, jockey] the choice, and he felt War Lord was slightly the better handicapped horse on this going, but equally, he knows there’s not much between his fellow and Elixir De Nutz.
It was always the plan to get a run into Elixir and then come here. He ran well at Chepstow and then just got tired, so he’ll improve for that run, and then with Fred [Gingell] taking another seven pounds off his back, he’ll think he’s running free!
War Lord was a very good novice two seasons ago, but something was just stopping him last season, so we’ve tweaked his wind, and since then he seems in really good form at home. Ideally we’d have started him off in a smaller race, but having lost Wetherby, we lost another option, and I think he’ll love the soft ground so it made sense to come here.
He may need a run to get his confidence back after the wind op, but if he realises he’s not hurting, he could definitely get involved here. I don’t think it’s the strongest renewal of the race.
Joe
