Joe Tizzard: “I’m expecting a big run from Elixir de Nutz”

She’s pretty exposed but it’s a nice race and a lovely day out for her owners. She does have an each way chance in the race.

Plumpton on Monday – Battle Of Ideas

He’s in really good nick and this looks a nice little race for him. We’ll declare him on Sunday. He came out of his last run really well and he’s thriving at the moment.

This race has probably come around a little bit sooner than we’d ideally like but it just looks such a good opportunity for him.

When you look back he’s had a wind issue which we’ve sorted, and he had some ulcers which we treated, and then he had lymphangitis, so he’s just not been particularly healthy over the summer.

But since he’s come back in he’s been really well in himself, his skin looks great, and he’s enjoying his work. It’s the best we’ve had him to be perfectly honest.

Ladbrokes King George and Coral Welsh Grand National Plans

We’ll have a chat with John and Heather Snook this weekend about Thistlecrack as the decision on whether to run in the Marsh Hurdle or the Ladbrokes King George will be up to them.

We don’t actually have to make the final decision until Thursday morning but we will be talking about it today, and we’ll work it out.

He’ll be trained exactly the same, we’re not going to change much, but we’ll school him over a fence on Wednesday rather than a hurdle if we are going for the King George.

I think Elegant Escape will be our one runner in the Coral Welsh Grand National.

Garth and Anne Broom are keen for Native River to go to the Cheltenham Gold Cup reasonably fresh, so we’ll likely target the Cotswold Chase or the Denman Chase for him.

He’ll just have the one run and then we’ll have a real good crack at the Gold Cup again.

Joe