Sam Twiston-Davies’ William Hill Blog: Giving our rivals a Real Whack at Cheltenham

We’ve had a cracking week so far, with a double at Huntingdon on Tuesday and a further winner at Market Rasen on Thursday. The hope is that the good form can continue at Cheltenham over the weekend with a very exciting reappearance.

Friday, Cheltenham

I’ve two rides on Friday, starting with Guy in the two-mile handicap chase (1.45pm). He seems in really good form at home and, while he ran well last time out, he just didn’t jump the last two fences as well as one would have hoped and landed with very little momentum. We might ride him a little bit differently here; there looks to be a lot of pace on again and, as we raced right up with it last time when he didn’t seem to finish out that strongly, we think that if we’re a little bit more patient with him here, hopefully he can finish off better and give himself a chance.

Then we have Mr Mackay in the last (4.05pm). He’s a horse who seems in good form at home and ran in a competitive race last time out, just getting found out, but he was very green and we rode him quite positively that day. I hope that he’s learnt a lot, and this looks to be a competitive race, but he’s in good nick and, hopefully, we can tuck him in handy to middle and see a better performance again.

Saturday, Cheltenham

I’m really looking forward to my rides on Saturday, starting off with Good Risk At All in the three-mile novices’ chase (1.45pm). He looked really good at Carlisle when winning under Charlie Deutsch. He jumped well, got into a really good rhythm and he goes well on soft ground, which is a real positive. He’s stepping up to three miles here in what looks a wide open race, even though there’s only six runners. What should suit him is that it looks like there’ll be a fair amount of pace in the race, so, if they go a good gallop, he should be able to get into a good rhythm, jump away nicely and be dangerous late on.

It is a competitive race with the likes of Mr Coffey in there, who was running a massive race in the Grand National before getting a little bit tired, so you can expect him to be going forward and being a little bit aggressive. He could give us a nice target to aim at. I’m looking forward to this and it’ll lead nicely into my second ride.

The Real Whacker is next in the Paddy Power Gold Cup (2.20pm). It’s a starting point for his season, so it’ll be interesting to see how he goes. He’s in here off a mark of 162, so he has to give a lot of weight away to some very good horses but, even so, he himself is a very good horse – he’s the only horse to have beaten Gerri Colombe over fences!

I went up and sat on him the other day and I know that Paddy [Neville] is really happy with him, so this will be a great starting point for him at a track he goes incredibly well at and I’m really excited to get his season going. He was a fantastic horse all the way through last season and I’m very much looking forward to him.

All being well in this race, Paddy said in an interview the other day that he’s keen to have a crack at the King George with The Real Whacker. He was the mastermind of the plan with him all the way through last year, so if he feels that that’s the way he wants to go with him, we’ll look forward to it and it’ll make Christmas a little bit brighter!