Joe Tizzard: “I’m expecting a big run from Molineaux.”

We are not too far off two million pounds of prize money so we can’t complain. The Ladbrokes Trophy and Coral Welsh Grand National wins were massive days for us.

They are two of the biggest handicaps in the season and our horses won them really well. It’s too easy to forget those big successes.

If we’d had a couple of winners at Cheltenham we’d have probably said it’s our best season so far. We now put a lot of pressure on ourselves and once you’ve had a taste of the big wins, you want more and expect more.

The Summer ahead

There is a lot of shopping to be done over the coming weeks. We bought two lovely horses at Aintree, and its ongoing.

The Store sales start soon and we’ll be at all of them, the Doncaster Sales, and then at the Land Rover sale in Ireland,  and we’ll go over to France to Arcana this year.

We’ll get the main yard empty for six weeks and completely disinfect it. The summer plan is to replace the woodchip on the hill gallop, and we are also putting in a new gallop and schooling strip in.

We will probably have around 20 horses to run over the summer so it won’t be particularly busy.

Battle of Ideas – Coral Champions Club horse

He is in good form and I’d imagine towards the end of May we’ll find a race for him. He’s back in and he looks well.

We never heard a noise anyway at home, prior to his wind op, so it won’t be until we race him that we know if it’s worked or not. We think he will like good ground and he will be one of the horses we’ll run on a bit in the summer.

SATURDAY RUNNERS

3.35 Sandown – West Approach

He’s a solid, consistent performer. He was fifth in the Ladbrokes Trophy and was second in a couple of the Stayers Hurdle trials. He schooled really well this week and he’s in good form.

At this stage of the season when he’s been running in so many big races you never really know but he seems in good form.

He is what he is, and one of these days he will win one of these. If he can run to his Ladbrokes Trophy form then he would have an each way chance in this.

If Tom Scudamore had been available he would have ridden him but he has to ride for David Pipe, so Jonjo O’Neill Junior rides him.

Jonjo is riding very well, and riding winners for everyone and he’s ridden three winners for us. We are not hiding the fact that we are enjoying what we are seeing from his riding and he’s available so we are using him as often as we can.

4.40 Sandown – Molineaux

He is a good horse and two miles was probably too sharp for him at Aintree last time. We thought we might get away with it but he stayed on really well. He jumps nicely and he’s very consistent.

I think this is his trip and he will bounce off the ground. I’m expecting a big run from him and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he jumped the second last bang there.

Joe