Colin Tizzard: Rising to the top

Since taking out a full training license in 1998 (had trained horses previously in points), starting out with a yard of only 10 horses, Colin Tizzard has gone from strength to strength, in both the number of horses trained and more importantly the number of winners. But it has been in the last five years or so that Tizzard has really started to make an indelible imprint on the National Hunt scene.

Tizzard has won 22 Grade 1s in total (20 in the last five years, including nine last season), and responsible for nine of those wins is the yard’s much-loved flag bearer Cue Card. He gave Tizzard his first Cheltenham Festival winner when landing the Champion Bumper in 2010 on just his second career start, powering up the hill to win by eight lengths despite being sent off at odds of 40/1. Cue Card was the first four-year-old to win the race since Dato Star in 1995, running to a Timeform rating of 132, a figure which hasn’t been surpassed in the seven renewals since. The popular gelding made up into a smart hurdler the following season, but given his size and scope, he was always going to come into his own once tackling a fence, and that has borne out, with eight of his nine Grade 1 wins coming in that discipline.

In many ways, Cue Card has paved the way for Tizzard, showing that given the right tools, he can get the job done in no uncertain terms. Horses such as Thistlecrack and Native River add further credence to that statement, especially the former, who has the capacity to surpass even Cue Card’s achievements given the way he brushed his older stablemate aside as a novice in the King George VI Chase at Kempton. With the amount of talent Tizzard has in the chasing department at present, you might easily assume he has a better record with horses in that sphere, but as the graph below demonstrates, that isn’t the case.

The stats cover the last five seasons and show not only has Tizzard had more runners and winners over hurdles, but that the median Timeform rating over hurdles is higher too, suggesting he has more strength and depth in that department. These margins are only slight, though, and on the whole, it demonstrates that Tizzard is an excellent all-round trainer – way above average in every sector.

Tizzard enjoyed his best season to date in 2016/17, surpassing the £2 million mark in total prize money, and also recording his highest winners tally in Great Britain and Ireland (60) since taking out a license.

As the graph above demonstrates, the last two seasons have shown quite a steep rise in total prize money, largely down to his three big stable stars, Cue Card, Thistlecrack and Native River winning a host of notable races. However, the addition of the horses owned by the free-spending Alan Potts to the yard last year also played a major part to Tizzard’s career-defining total. Fox Norton won two Grade 1s, namely the Melling Chase at Aintree and the Boylesports Champion Chase at Punchestown last season, while the very exciting prospect Finian’s Oscar won the Grade 1 Mersey Novices' Hurdle at Aintree. The latter missed the Cheltenham Festival last season due to injury, but Tizzard is right to hope that he can play a leading role this year following his impressive return over fences at Chepstow earlier this month. Given the disparity in numbers of horses trained, Tizzard did remarkably well to mount some sort of challenge to Nicky Henderson and Paul Nicholls for the trainers’ championship last season, eventually finishing third, just under £500k clear of Nigel Twiston-Davies.

Perhaps due to the increase in both numbers and quality in the yard, recent stats indicate that there has been a change in how Tizzard approaches both the start and end of the season as the graphs below illustrate.

In the 2014/15 season Tizzard’s tactic seemed to be to gradually build up the fitness of his runners so that they would peak in the busier winter time, and the same trend followed in the 2015/16 season.

However, Tizzard had his string more forward than usual last season, ready to roll so to speak in late-summer/early-autumn, and they seem to be following a similar path this season, too. The run to form (RTF) average from last season shows that Tizzard, on the whole, remained above his previous threshold, strengthening the point that it was his best to date as a trainer.  Since the 2013/14 season, Tizzard’s RTF percentage has risen 16%, and is currently operating at 64% this season.

Moving forward, Tizzard has all the components in place to make this season his best yet, having upgraded the facilities at Venn Farm this summer, building a new barn which has the capacity to house up to another 20-plus horses. Tizzard had around 80 horses in training last season, so you can expect that number to rise, and the yard are really starting to get going now, having saddled 10 winners in October so far, including White Moon and West Approach, who both look sure to play leading roles in the novice hurdle and chase ranks, respectively. The likes of Cue Card and Thistlecrack will no doubt be geared up to defend their crowns in the Betfair Chase at Haydock and King George VI at Kempton, whereas Native River is reportedly being aimed at the Gold Cup at the Cheltenham Festival – where he will likely clash with Thistlecrack – and won’t be seen out until sometime in the New Year.