Joe Tizzard Saturday runners blog: 'The big race has been the plan since last season'

This has been the target for this fellow all season, we ran him in the Badger Beers last time to see if he would get the three miles plus trip, he just about did to finish second, but dropping him back slightly in trip here looks the right decision, as I think 2m 6f is his ideal distance.  Newbury will suit him, and he’s such a good, consistent sort, he’ll turn up here again and run another big race I’m sure.

Walk Tall is a lovely young horse, and he’s also a big boy, so we’ve had to wait for a bit of ease in the ground to see him in action.  We got him after his point-to-point win, he actually finished second in his Bumper to another of ours, luckily both horses were owned by the same people!

This is his first start over hurdles, so we’ll learn plenty more about him, in terms of his ideal trip, but he is one of the biggest horses we’ve got in the yard and will be very much a nice horse for the future.

This is a proper renewal of this great race, with a maximum field of 24 declared, which is as it should be for a race worth £250,000, and so it’s very competitive.  Like Scarface, The Changing Man is such a consistent horse who always turns up and runs his race, as he did at Ascot last time, when finishing second, and he should come on for that reappearance.

We've put the cheekpieces on him here, not because we think he's in any way ungenuine, but we just don't want to look back afterwards and think we should have tried something a little bit different to get everything out of him.  The trip and the track are absolutely right for him, and this has been the plan since the end of last season.

Obviously it is extremely competitive, but he's run big races in big handicaps before and if he turns up and does the same again he's got every chance of being placed. He always travels strongly, but whether or not he's good enough to win it off this mark remains to be seen, as he is quite exposed because he always run consistently well. 

As a yard we have won this race twice before.  Native River was very much a horse who was well in at the weight at the time, and obviously went on to win a Gold Cup, but I would rate this horse higher than Sizing Tennessee, and have no doubt The Changing Man would have won that particular running of the race.  It's a hugely important race and it goes without saying it would mean so much to the whole team if we could win it again. 

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