With Ascot’s valuable card in serious doubt because of another night of sub-zero temperatures, Haydock is expected to move centre-stage on Saturday afternoon and Colin Tizzard’s Alary, a 25-1 chance for the Cheltenham Gold Cup without ever jumping a fence in public in Britain, is the potential star waiting in the wings.
Alary is not a dark horse, in any sense of the words. He has 20 runs in the form book already, including 13 starts over fences and a close second in one of France’s major Grade One races last time out. He is also a striking chestnut, with a white blaze on his face.
But he remains an unknown quantity for British punters, who have shown considerable faith in Tizzard’s judgment with a steady swell of support for Alary throughout the week before Saturday’s Peter Marsh Chase.
The seven-year-old, who was bought late last year to run in the green, yellow and red colours of Alan Potts, will carry top weight in the limited handicap and race off an official rating of 162. Tizzard’s Native River, the Welsh National winner and second-favourite for the Gold Cup, has a mark of 168, so victory for Alary would make him a very credible fifth member of the stable’s Gold Cup team, alongside Thistlecrack, Cue Card,Native River and longshot Theatre Guide.
“He was bought as a very good horse and he’s done everything we could have asked of him at home,” Joe Tizzard, the trainer’s son and assistant, said on Friday. “He’s settled in well, he’s got used to our uphill gallop and we’re very excited about running him. He was second, beaten half a length, on his last run, in the French equivalent of the King George Chase, and the horse that beat him is apparently the top-rated horse in France.
“Before we bought him, we watched videos of him and I went over and sat on him, and we phoned Phil Smith [the British Horseracing Authority’s senior handicapper] and asked him what sort of mark he would get, and whether he would be competitive in a Gold Cup on what he knew about the form. He said that he would be, so as long as he takes to the English style of racing, he should be all right.”
Big-money buys in France have not been the Tizzards’ way until now. The stable’s rise towards its current status as the major challenger to Paul Nicholls in the championship has been achieved by buying young powerfully built jumping types, bought as a result of Colin Tizzard’s uncanny eye for a potential champion like Cue Card.
The recent arrival of Potts on Tizzard’s list of owners, however, means that the trainer now has a cheque book to match those wielded by National Hunt’s biggest players. “Long-term, most of our luck has been through the stores route, but we haven’t had the backing of a Mr Potts to go and buy this sort of horse,” Joe Tizzard said. “This was a different situation, Mr Potts wanted a Cheltenham Festival horse, a Gold Cup horse, and this horse came on the market so we went and tried him, and got him. We don’t mind how we get hold of them, so long as we do.
“We were lucky until he came along to have the likes of Mrs [Jean] Bishop [the owner of Cue Card] and Brocade Racing [the syndicate that owns Native River]. They were our biggest-spending owners and we had a really good season last year, but it’s the next step to have Mr Potts arrive with 15 horses, and then go out and invest in three more. It’s massive for our yard and takes us up to another level, hence the sort of season we’ve been having.”
The Tizzard yard is still about £200,000 behind Paul Nicholls in the trainers’ championship, and the 7-2 second favourite for the title, though with the perennial champion generally quiet in January, Saturday offers a chance to make more ground.
“We perhaps haven’t got the numbers they have, but we’ve certainly got the good horses to be competitive on a Saturday at the moment,” Tizzard said “It’s something we’d love to have a good crack at, and we probably won’t be in this position every year. We’re spoilt with the horses we’ve got at the moment, but none of them last forever so we need people to reinvest in the younger horses, so that in three or four years’ time we’ve still got horses that are potentially in the Gold Cup.
“I think the hardest part nowadays is buying the horses, and finding the good horses at the best time to buy them. Everybody can get them fit and run them in the right races, it’s getting lucky and getting hold of the best horses, like Cue Card, Thistlecrack and Native River. You’ve got to find them at the right time.”
The prospects for Ascot’s meeting on Saturday, which is due to feature the Grade One Clarence House Chase, appear bleak after Chris Stickels, the track’s clerk of the course, called a 6.30am inspection and conceded: “We are up against it, I’m afraid.”
Parts of the track are frozen and the current forecast of freezing temperatures again on Friday night will need to be significantly askew if the meeting is to survive.
“In my view, we wouldn’t have raced today,” Stickels said. “It’s not so much because of the frost overnight, but the accumulation of a few nights of frost.
“The forecast is for it get down to -3C tonight and then it’s not due to get up above 3C or 4C on Saturday with an easterly wind and possible freezing fog during the morning. It’s a shame, but unless the forecast is incorrect, I don’t think we’ll raceable tomorrow.”
Discussions are already underway about the possibility of rescheduling the race, one of only two Grade One chases over two miles in Britain before the Cheltenham Festival in March. Cheltenham’s Trials day meeting next Saturday would normally be a logical choice, but the card already includes eight races after a cross-country event was diverted to the meeting earlier in the season due to unusually fast ground.