Joe Tizzard Saturday runners blog: 'The horse is in the form of his life'

Joe Tizzard has two runners at Ascot on Saturday, December 20, including Alexei in the Ascot Handicap Hurdle. The Coral ambassador previews them both in his latest blog.

• Scarface - Ascot - 1.50 race odds

• Alexei - Ascot - 3.35 race odds

Ascot 1.50 – Scarface

Scarface ran a lovely race first time up in the Badger Beers, and we thought he was going to Newbury with a big chance last time, but having travelled well into the straight, he just stopped very quickly. We got him scoped after that, but nothing came to light, so we just put it down to him having an off day.

He’s in good order now, and worked really well at home earlier this week, so we’ve dropped him back in trip here, we’ll put blinkers on him rather than cheekpieces just to try something a little bit different, and at his best, he’d have a really good each-way chance here.

Ascot 3.35 – Alexei

One of our stars of the season so far, it wasn’t an easy decision to run Alexei off top weight here rather than wait for the Grade One Christmas Hurdle at Kempton, but I spoke to the owners, and we’re in agreement to stay in handicap company for now. I will enter him for Kempton just in case anything silly happens here, he unshipped at the first for example, so we’ll have that plan B if needed.

Off a mark of 147 though, I do still think he's a handicapper. Clearly if he was to go and win here off top weight then we would be looking at graded company in the future, but for now this is where he should be. He's in lovely form, and I couldn't be happier with him, he showed two runs ago that he goes well here at Ascot, and we all saw what he did in the Greatwood Hurdle, winning it so easily the handicapper probably had no choice but to hike him right up.

He came out of that Cheltenham race really well, he's been in great form at home since, and clearly he's in the form of his life on the track, finishing second in a really good race at Chepstow first time up, and then winning his last two impressively. He has flat form on testing ground in Germany, so even if Ascot does get even more rain, I think he will go through it absolutely fine.

I'm really excited to run this horse. I do think there is more to come from him and he deserves to be prominent in the betting, even off this high mark. Of course it's possible he could get put in his place here by something of a much lower mark, but if he does go and win or go very close, then we will have to start thinking about stepping him up in class going forward.

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