Colin Tizzard has no concerns about Cue Card‘s stamina ahead of his run in the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
The 10-year-old will pocket the Jockey Club’s £1million bonus, if he wins the Gold Cup having already landed the Betfair Chase and the King George VI Chase this season.
Cue Card will be appearing at his fifth Cheltenham Festival and he has already won the Champion Bumper and the Ryanair Chase, although he has missed the last two years due to problems.
However, he has been better than ever this season and, though he will be tackling the 3m2f Gold Cup trip for the first time, Tizzard is not worried about whether Cue Card will stay.
Tizzard told Racing UK: “After he won the Festival Bumper, he did look like the most promising horse in training as he would, he was by King’s Theatre out of a staying mare.
“I always thought he’d end up as a stayer, but because he showed so much pace, we didn’t have to go up.
“He’s changed this year, he looks better in his skin. We were really chuffed at Wetherby with his performance. You can look back and say they’re not Gold Cup horses, then the Betfair wasn’t Gold Cup horses, but he definitely beat Gold Cup horses at Kempton. He’s got better all season.
“If he gets beat and he jumps the last, and two beat him up the run-in, they’ll say he didn’t stay, they won’t say he was the third best, they’ll say he didn’t stay. If he doesn’t stay, he doesn’t stay, but I think he’s a stayer now.
“On our gallops, he looks as though he stays and on a racetrack he’s doing all his best work at the end of a race now, which he never used to. I’m sure he does stay.”
