Talking Horses: Lizzie Kelly has eyes on main prize aboard Festival winner

If the long wait for the positive news from Cheltenham on Friday seemed unbearable, spare a thought for Lizzie Kelly. Sidelined since breaking her arm in a fall on 10 October, Kelly had just been passed fit to ride Siruh Du Lac, her front-running Festival winner earlier in the year, in today’s BetVictor Gold Cup, when suddenly the recent downpours in the west country threatened to intervene.

“He’d be the perfect comeback ride,” Kelly said. “So long as you get the fractions right, then he’s easy, an easy ride that makes it difficult for everyone else.

“He had them strung out like washing coming past the stands [at Cheltenham in March] and on that ground it would be so difficult to come back at him. He jumps, he travels, he likes Cheltenham and it’s also been a really good place for me so we’re just all sitting here at the moment with our fingers crossed.”

Kelly has had only eight rides since early May, and suffered her recent injury just as the winter ground arrived to mark the start of the jumps campaign proper.

She is, as she happily admits, “a 100-rides-a-year jockey”, which makes her list of major victories all the more impressive, and a win in today’s race, which is worth just over £90,000 to the winner, would be the most valuable of her career, overtaking the Grade One Betway Bowl (£84,000) and the Betfair Hurdle (£88,000). It would also leave her one win short of her next major milestone: losing her 3lb claim and graduating to the senior ranks.

“It was really difficult,” she says of her latest spell on the sidelines. “I was getting to the point where I was race fit, my weight was beginning to come good and I thought the horse [Rococo River] would win. I thought, this is the beginning now, and it all went wrong.

“My main aim for the season was actually just to ride the two winners that would mean that I’m a professional jockey. Chester [Williams, her brother] has stepped up to the plate [for her stepfather, trainer Nick Williams] and that has softened the blow. At least it’s my little brother that’s riding them instead of me. But horses have won and if I’d been riding them, I’d have probably ticked off the biggest achievement of my career so far.”

Kelly is also booked to ride the progressive Monsieur Le Coq, who has been backed down to favouritism in recent days, in Sunday’s Greatwood Hurdle and so she could, in theory, be a professional jockey by the evening. But Siruh Du Lac, who was unbeaten in four races last season and is still just six years old, is the main horse on her mind for now.

“He’s one of my favourites,” she says. “When you ride him, he’s just electric. For me as a jockey, I can see I’ve either got a very long one or something a bit more sensible and he’ll make the decision, he’ll say ‘I’m coming up here’, he’s just so confident with his jumping.

“And he’s very accurate, touch wood. The only fence he got in tight to at the Festival was the last, which is the only one you want to have a flyer at.

“It’s a fact-finding mission too. How good is he? Grade One horses are so hard to find and if he we were to win, then that’s possibly his future.” Greg Wood

Saturday’s TV tipping guide

Paul Nicholls has a loyal punter following in the major Saturday handicap chases and last weekend’s Badger Beers Trophy at Wincanton provided the latest justification for same. So it is slightly surprising to be offered odds of 20-1 about his Magic Saint (2.25) in the BetVictor Gold Cup at Cheltenham, considering the horse makes plenty of each-way appeal.

He did not live up to his reputation last season but is still only a five-year-old and it is fairly common for ex-French horses to take a year before showing their best form in Britain. A wind operation over the summer may help his finishing effort and this extra half-mile is also thought likely to suit. Few of his rivals have the same potential to be ahead of their rating.

Sirruh Du Lac, the mount of Lizzie Kelly, has done nothing wrong and will surely go close. Slate House’s rating has suffered because of his recent win but Count Meribel should have more to offer and can get involved.

1.50 Cheltenham Pop Rockstar is very tempting, with his progressive profile, but this is a significant step up in class and his form does not suggest he is particularly in love with this kind of ground. Big River, on the other hand, will love it but his lack of pace is discouraging for a small field in which they may go a steady pace. This could be the day to back West Approach, who hasn’t won for a couple of years but ran a big race on similar ground here last month, beaten only by a well-treated rival.

2.45 Lingfield He was beaten in the handicap on Champions Day at Ascot but Lord North still ran a big race to be second and this switch to a Polytrack surface might be helpful for a horse not short on speed. He can complete a double on the card for Frankie Dettori.

3.00 Cheltenham This deeply competitive staying hurdle is made all the harder to unpick by the range of profiles on offer, including specialist hurdlers, chasers in disguise, rising stars and old lags. The eye goes first to Anteros, who won this three years ago and is on a winning run. But his recent success has come over fences and he does not look that well treated this time. Smackwater Jack could be the one, having put up a career best effort on his reappearance, despite the saddle slipping in the closing stages. Richard Johnson is back in his saddle and his stable has since hit form.

3.15 Lingfield Having run above his odds of 16-1 here last month, Gifted Master is the one to stick with, especially as the selection returns to the six furlongs that seems to suit him best.

3.30 Cheltenham This move into handicaps could be good news for Falco Blitz, whose ready success in a maiden hurdle at Fakenham last month boded well for a fruitful autumn. He has a 9lb pull for three lengths with Jatiluwih from their Ludlow form in March. Chris Cook