Thistlecrack on fast track to Gold Cup - or it's back to hurdles

Thistlecrack has never jumped a fence in public and he is 6-1 favourite for the Timico Cheltenham Gold Cup – about four points shorter than his vastly more experienced stablemate Cue Card. Yes, you could say it's a big winter for the eight-year-old.

Indeed, the stakes could hardly be higher for the eight-year-old as connections go down the adventurous route after his all-conquering 2015-16 campaign in the staying hurdle division, where he won five out of five last winter by a cumulative margin of 40 lengths, in the process dismantling the opposition at both Cheltenham and Aintree before a minor foot injury kept him out of Punchestown.

Trainer Colin Tizzard and John and Heather Snook, Thistlecrack's owners, have been ultra-patient over the years with the big, rangy gelding; now, though, they could hardly be any bolder. Okay, Coneygree's success laid the bogey that had surrounded novice chasers in the Gold Cup for four decades, but the Thistlecrack team aren't even considering a look at the novice division at the major festivals.