Hey Big Spender graduates at Carlisle
Having travelled over 270 miles it was the last 200 yards that looked as though it was going to be a wasted journey for Colin Tizzard and Hey Big Spender.
Tizzard decided that a run at one of his local tracks was not the right choice, when the trainer felt the ground at Wincanton last weekend was too firm, so he opted for the soft option at Carlisle.
The ground was indeed so testing that the first fence in the home straight was omitted but there was little soft about the opposition for the Weatherbys Bank Graduation Chase. Big Fella Thanks may have won only two of his 11 starts over fences but he is a horse who has yet to reach his full potential.
This was his first run for Ferdy Murphy, who took the horse over as part of the settlement that saw owner Harry Findlay dissolve his long-standing partnership with Paul Barber and split from the Paul Nicholls stable, and it looked likely to be a winning one. Hey Big Spender had been giving his jockey, Joe Tizzard, a hard time pulling for his head in a slowly-run race.
He took up the lead on the run to the home turn but a mistake at the second-last handed the race to Big Fella Thanks who seemed to be full of running. All of which deserted in the final furlong as Hey Big Spender out-stayed him on the run-in to win by a length. “During the race it was mixed emotions,” Tizzard Snr admitted. “He was pulling too hard, hit a couple and at the second-last I thought it was all over, because Ferdy’s horse came by and looked as though he was going to win 10 lengths.
“The thing is he stays. We’ve always thought he was a stayer and he’s proved it. He can grind it out right to the end. We just need a faster-run race – he’s just a big, strong boy.”
Hey Big Spender looks just the type to carry big weights in the major handicaps like the Hennessy Gold Cup but his chances of running will depend on whether Nicholls decides to run Kauto Star who, on current ratings, would put Tizzard’s horse out of the handicap. “If Kauto Star runs, this one would be 20lbs out of the handicap – and what do we do then? That’s going to make it a different race if Kauto runs.”
However, while Tizzard may be hoping to avoid Kauto Star there are likely to be a few trainers looking to dodge the bullet when he runs Cue Card in the Grade Two Cheltenham Collection Sharp Novices’ Hurdle on Friday.
Cue Card, winner of the Champion Bumper at the Festival in March, will dropping back to an extended two miles after running over two-and-a-half miles on his hurdling debut at Aintree last month, but Tizzard does not see that as a problem. “I think two miles around Cheltenham, good to soft ground, he’ll relax and he’s got loads of pace,” he said. “He pulls hard going into a hurdle but he still jumps well. A lot of these horses run into the bottom of them. He doesn’t, he pulls hard but he’s out over them.”
There have already been the inevitable questions over whether Tizzard should stick to novice races this season or sets his sights on a programme that would take in the Champion Hurdle. There will be plenty of time for that decision but there is no disguising the belief that the trainer has in his horse.
“He’s has everything – from day one he’s been like that. It’s pressure with now – he’s been brilliant and long may it last.”
Six months ago Long Run was being spoken of in the same terms. He may have dimmed a little when he finished third in the RSA Chase in March but he is market leader for the Paddy Power Chase on Saturday, for which there are 26 five-day declarations.
This will be the first big meeting where Nicholls will have to find a replacement rider for Ruby Walsh who expects to be out of action for three months as he recovers from a double-fracture to his right leg sustained in a fall at Down Royal on Saturday.
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