Cue Card puts on electric display to leave Tizzard gushing

Ascot: Betfair Ascot Chase (Grade 1) 2m5f 5yo+

His younger stablemates may have stolen the limelight in recent months but at Ascot Cue Card served a timely reminder of his own wondrous talent.

It would be even-money each of two as to which was more electric –the 11-year-old's open display of authority or the reception he received upon his return to the winner's enclosure.

Full result

The race between scrambling fans clamouring for a vantage point from which to greet their hero was vastly more competitive than the Grade 1 Cue Card had just made a mockery of, winning by an eased-down 15 lengths under a broad-grinning Paddy Brennan.

It was a welcome that touched all connected with this most majestic of beasts. In Thistlecrack and Native River Colin Tizzard may have two horses deemed by bookmakers to have a better chance of winning next month's Gold Cup, but the trainer knows Cue Card – a general 6-1 chance for the Cheltenham showpiece – is the most popular.

"He's such a superstar," Tizzard said. "He’s surprised me all my life, he’s been a brilliant horse for such a long time and deserved that reception.

"You keep worrying, he’s 11, can he keep doing this? I’ve been doing this with him for years and he was brilliant again today. He jumped fantastic and destroyed them. It was everything I could have wanted and more."

A disappointing second in the King George had raised questions as to whether Father Time was beginning to catch up with him, but his trainer had a different explanation.

He said: "After his last race he wasn’t right behind, he had a big fat leg afterwards. He had a bit of lymphangitis – he didn’t have it when he raced but you don't know if it affected him."

Once that cleared up Tizzard – who suggested, despite the growing strength of his team, he still did not have a horse who could beat Cue Card up his four-furlong gallop – admitted he was talked into a detour from last year's path by Cue Card's jockey.

"Paddy was the instigator of this," explained Tizzard. "He said to come here because over two and a half they’d go a Cheltenham pace, we wouldn’t have to have three months off and it'd fire him up and keep his jumping sharp."

'He's changed my life'

Brennan may have been in the saddle for only ten of Cue Card's 35 career starts, but his deep love for the horse is obvious. He has won a World Hurdle and a Gold Cup, but he had also endured a meandering few years and when he said "he's changed my life the last couple of years" he was not joking.

"He's a serious machine," was his glowing appraisal of Cue Card's ninth Grade 1 win and his second Ascot Chase four years after his first. "I was most impressed from the second-last to the last, he picked up like a good horse should."

Of the Gold Cup, he added: "In a normal year he’d be a short-priced favourite, but this is an exceptional Gold Cup. It’s going to be an unbelievable race but he’ll be ridden different tactically and if they get into it a long way out it could just fall in his lap.

"I certainly wouldn’t swap him for either of the other two and I’m sure he won’t let us down."