Joe Tizzard: We’ll know our fate early with The Big Breakaway
Coral ambassador and trainer Joe Tizzard spoke to us about the chances of The Big Breakaway causing an upset in Saturday’s Grand National at Aintree.
We’ve been dining at the top table all season with this horse, and he has more than held his own, getting placed in these graded races, but straight after the Gold Cup we made the decision that his next race would be in a handicap.
I’m hoping this race isn’t as competitive as it often is, it certainly doesn’t look it, although our fellow will still need to perform to his best to get involved here. He seems in really good form at home, because we didn’t go into the Gold Cup with huge expectations and he didn’t have a really hard race there, although we won’t know for sure until we run him. At the end of the day he is a graded horse running in a handicap, I’m certainly hoping he can run a big race.
The Big Breakaway did disappoint us at Cheltenham, although they did go flat out from the word go, he was just never travelling at any point. Go back to his Coral Welsh National run, though, and he ran a blinder, carrying a huge weight, so off 10-10 here he’ll think he’s running loose.
We’ve taken him to the Pipe’s for a spin over their National-style fences, and he’s had a couple of away days out hunting to help freshen him up too. We’ll put blinkers on him here which should help Brendan [Powell] to get him settled and travelling over the first four or five fences. After that he will hopefully be into a rhythm and he should be fine.
I do think we’ll know our fate early on. If he does settle into the race then I do believe he could have a massive chance, but equally he may not take to it. I won’t allow myself to dream about the perfect result, but I do know it’s a privilege to have a runner in this race, and we’ll try to enjoy it as best we can. At the end of the day it’s the Grand National, anything can happen.
