‘Thistle’ is not ready for leap to Kempton
THE Cheltenham Gold Cup is the aim but Thistlecrack showed just how ambitious that Festival target in March is as he overcame a couple of jumping scares yesterday to make it two novice chase wins at the track.
‘Not the finished article,’ was the honest assessment of trainer Colin Tizzard after the 1-7 favourite beat Marinero far more easily than the three and a half length winning margin suggests.
But mere victory was not the talking point after the mallardjewellers.com Novices’ Chase.
There was a Thistlecrack mistake at the first ditch, the fifth fence when he took off too early and landed on the birch which prompted him to be hesitant at the seventh fence, the next ditch. In the context of yesterday’s race, they were inconsequential errors but they have already prompted Tizzard into a re-think.
Thistlecrack will now try to gain extra jumping experience in the Worcester Novices’ Chase on the Hennessy Gold Cup card at Newbury on November 26.
Thoughts of pitching the gelding against the best chasers around in the King George VI Chase at Kempton also look like being abandoned in favour of sticking to the more traditional route of the Kauto Star Novices’ Chase on the Boxing Day undercard.
Tizzard, who also won the Bet Victor Handicap Chase with Grand National prospect Viconte Du Noyer, said: ‘He is not the finished article yet. I would say he will stay as a novice for now. The King George is a very hot race, one of the toughest you can imagine.
‘If we are going to go big after Christmas he needs to get more experience. ’
Winning jockey Tom Scudamore accentuated the positives when he said: ‘The further he has gone, the better he has started to jump. Over the last few he was electric.’
Thistlecrack remains 7-2 favourite for the Gold Cup, which are ridiculously short odds. Coneygree won the 2015 Gold Cup as a novice — but his strength was jumping.