Joe Tizzard: “Amarillo Sky could be our best chance of the week”

Coral ambassador Joe Tizzard gives the lowdown on the team’s Cheltenham Festival day two runners

Cheltenham 1.30 – Scarface

Similar to JPR One on Tuesday, Scarface is a lovely young horse who will be an outsider in this Grade One novice hurdle.

He’s progressed with every run this season, and travelled strongly in his last race, at Ascot, before just getting touched off by the favourite.

He should get a strong pace here which would help him travel nicely again, and like JPR One, he’ll learn plenty running in a race of this class, and we can build on that going forward, he’s definitely a horse with a future.

Cheltenham 4.50 – Amarillo Sky & Elixir De Nutz

As with Tuesday’s Ultima, we’re double-handed in the Grand Annual.

I think Amarillo Sky could be our best chance of the week, he’s a progressive young horse who travels and jumps well, he put up his best performance so far when winning at Newbury last time, and novices have a good record in this race, so he ticks a lot of boxes.

Elixir De Nutz was a grade one winning hurdler, but we struggled with him the season after that, when he was kept hurdling in open company.

Since switching him to chasing he’s got back on track, he won at Plumpton to set up the chance of a bonus if he wins at the Festival – this race has been the plan since that win – and he was really good at Kempton last time, so there’s no reason if he stays in that form why he can’t run a big race here.