Tizzard's Hand Reminiscent Of Dickinson's

Jonathan Powell looks ahead to the big race.

As a sports mad youngster Colin Tizzard once took the wicket of Ian Botham when they were playing in a trial for Somerset’s U15 team.

These days he is the one attracting a media circus as he fine-tunes his talented squad of steeplechasers for the Timoco Cheltenham Gold Cup.

With hundreds of cows to milk each morning on the family farm at Milborne Port in Somerset, cricket was never going to be a full-time occupation for Tizzard, who also played soccer for Somerset schoolboys.

He recalls the day he captured Botham’s wicket with searing clarity.

“Ian tried to hit me for six the way he tried to hit all bowlers for six. But he miscued one and was caught. It was a bit of fun, nothing more. That is my claim to fame.”

With farming always a priority, Tizzard came late to the business of training horses. But, with four of his five entries serious contenders for the race that matters most in the jumping calendar, he is certainly making up for lost time.

A winter rich in achievement has brought Tizzard to the forefront of the training ranks to the point that he is now seen as the most likely candidate to end the stranglehold on the championship long held by his near neighbour, Paul Nicholls.

It started with the success of Third Intention in the Old Roan Chase at Aintree late in October, and has continued ever since with Cue Card, Native River, Fox Norton, Thistlecrack and many more carrying all before them. The Tizzard fortunes were in overdrive over the festive period in December when Native River ran away with the Coral Welsh National at Chepstow a day after Thistlecrack had beaten his stable companion Cue Card in a compelling finish to the King George V1 Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day.