Joe Tizzard: “Thistlecrack hasn’t lost an ounce of his ability.”

There are no real excuses for him really, although clearly it is his first run of the season and it’s more about the King George and the Gold Cup rather than tomorrow.

I’m really excited to see him run. He’s our big gun, he’s our best chance of winning a Gold Cup, and he’s a 170 rated horse. We don’t feel any pressure having a horse as good as this.

This is what we do it for. We’re trying to find the next Thistlecrack all the time, and in all fairness we are going into most Saturdays with nice horses, and it’s sometimes more nerve-wracking talking the likes of Finian’s Oscar to a novice chase at Cheltenham than running Thistlecrack in a hurdle tomorrow.

I certainly won’t have a sleepless night worrying about how Thistlecrack is going to run, but I will wake up excited about it.

The most important day for Thistlecrack will be the two or three days after the race to see how he’s come out of it. We want this horse to take us to the Gold Cup.

12.20 Newbury – Losintranslation

He’s a lovely horse. He has put up two striking performances.

They’ve given him a mark of 125 and I think that’s lenient as I think he’s better than that. We decided to come here as this was the only day that the boys that own him could come racing before Christmas, so we hope to win this maiden hurdle, and then we’ll start setting our sights a bit higher.

He is a beautiful horse, a real powerful chap, and he will definitely jump fences and he will definitely stay further in time.

He’s on a par with Slate House and White Moon, he’s up there with our top novice hurdlers, we really like him.

Saturday

Ladbrokes Trophy – Royal Vacation

He always takes a run to get himself right and we’ve had this race in mind since last year.

He disappointed us in the RSA Chase and we’ve since treated his shins. He’s a Grade One winner going into this, even if a bit lucky, and he has a chance.

Theatre Guide was placed in the race on two occasions so I’m sure this boy can be placed, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him run a massive race.

Coneygree is the class horse in the race but his presence does us all a favour as it keeps our horse’s weight down to a nice looking 10st 10lbs.

Joe