Joe Tizzard Saturday runners blog: 'It looks a very winnable contest'

Sandown 1.50 – Tennessee Tango

This is a competitive race as you’d expect for a Sandown Saturday meeting, although in effect it’s a 0 - 130 handicap, so we’re in it off a lovely mark of 122.  His form all season has been strong, he was placed a couple of times in races that have worked out OK, and then we dropped him in grade at Plumpton to give him a confidence booster, and he duly bolted up.

We’re stepping him up in trip here, so he’ll need to show he gets 2 ½ miles, but I think he will, as does Brendan [Powell], and drying ground will suit him, so I think he’s got a decent each-way chance.  And whatever he does here, he will be a lovely horse for next season. 

Hereford 2.52 – Western General

Western General won this race last year, he perhaps didn’t go on from that as we’d have hoped, so we gave him a wind op in January, and he won nicely on the run that followed, at Chepstow. Only three have been declared against him here, so I hope it’s a lovely opportunity for him to follow up, it certainly looks a winnable contest.

Final Cheltenham prep

We gave all the Cheltenham horses one final schooling session on Wednesday. I’m always a bag of nerves while this is going on, as things can really only go wrong at this stage!  Every year I ask myself ‘why do we do it?’, as they’re not going to suddenly improve their jumping with one short session, and as I say, there’s the chance for things to go wrong, but then again, if they went to the Festival and made a jumping mistake that cost them their chance, I’d be cursing myself for not doing the session!

Anyway, it all went smoothly, so now we just have to get them there next week. We’re making confirmations all week, and then the first set of declarations on Sunday, and I just have a couple of final decisions to make, with Kripticjim for example, the ground will largely dictate if he goes for the Turners or the Albert Bartlett, while we’ll also consider the likely opposition in either race.

We’ll have ten or eleven runners over the week all being well, and honestly if they all ran to their very best, I can make a case for all of them running well. This is the strongest team I’ve had since taking the licence, and the excitement level is cranking up now.

Sean Bowen will also be in action at Cheltenham next week. Check out the latest Cheltenham Festival betting odds with Ladbrokes.

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