Joe Tizzard: “Western General should take all the beating here”
Trainer and Coral ambassador Joe Tizzard discusses his five runners at Haydock and Newton Abbot on Saturday.
The victory of Triple Trade at Wincanton on Wednesday took us to 50 for the season, which I was aware of beforehand. It is an important milestone for me and the team, although I’m the sort of competitive person who always wants to achieve more, so there’s certainly no easing up now. A target I would really like to pass this season is £1million in prize money, we’re about £100,000 off that at present, so need a good end to the season, and with Aintree and Ayr coming up, we’ve hopefully still got some strong cards to play.
The Changing Man ran a cracker in the Pertemps at Cheltenham, he finished eighth but was beaten only five lengths. He’s been progressive all season, and ran well here at Haydock two runs ago, the long home straight really suits him, Brendan [Powell] can wind him up and he keeps galloping.
This will be his last run over hurdles as we’ll go novice chasing next season, but he should still be competitive here. There might be something lurking down the bottom of the handicap that’s less exposed than him, but not many of these would have finished where he did at Cheltenham.
Le Ligerien is bidding for a four timer, having dotted up at Newbury last time. He’s got form on heavy going, and Freddie [Gingell] will take off seven pounds here, but he’s a straight-forward ride who’s in the form of his life aged 10, so hopefully he can keep the winning run going.
West Approach is 13 now, but he’s a lovely old boy, who is now qualified to run in these 0 – 120 veterans’ chases. I actually thought he ran well for a long way at Wincanton last time, the owner thought he just blew up that day, but that’s the trouble with these tricky owners! [Dad Colin Tizzard]. He’s coming down the handicap and it wouldn’t surprise me to see him go in again one day soon, maybe even here.
Western General should take a lot of beating here. He finished a good second to one of Paul Nicholls’ at Taunton last time, that one has won again since, and this maiden hurdle doesn’t look as if it will take too much winning. He’s been given a mark of 113 and that should be enough for him to go very close here.
Talimar Pearl had his first run in a handicap last time and was a bit disappointing that day, for no apparent reason. I don’t think he will mind plenty of cut in the ground here, he’s a nice young horse but we just need to see a bit more from him here.
Joe
