The star attraction on the Day Two card of the Cheltenham Festival for 2022 is undoubtedly Tiger Roll. Gordon Elliott’s trained star has won plenty of times at the festival before and will be looking to finish off his illustrious career with another win in the Cross Country Chase. The race, which is due off at 4.10 - looks to be a great opportunity for Tiger Roll to finish off his career in the best way possible, but can he do it?
Tiger Roll started off his brilliant record at the Cheltenham Festival back in 2014, when landing the Triumph Hurdle. That was only as a four-year-old and since then he has come on leaps and bounds, winning the National Hunt Chase, winning the Cross Country Chase three times and also winning two Grand Nationals at Aintree. He has quickly become one of the stars of the game and it will be with great sadness that plenty of us will be seeing him for the last time today, on Wednesday.
Many will be asking whether he can go and make it four Cross Country wins this year, and the answer is that he has a great opportunity to do so. He is the most likely favorite and the most likely winner of the race. He might find his stiffest competition to come from a fellow stablemate, with the former Irish Gold Cup winner Delta Work taking his chance and running in his first ever Cross-Country race. That brings an element of surprise to the race and an element of form that we have not yet seen Tiger Roll have to overcome in his last few victories.
JP McManus also has a brilliant record in this race and he fires a few bullets of his own this year. The unexposed Prengarde seems to be leading the way, alongside Shady Operator and Midnight Maestro. Also, in there is the Jonjo O'Neill trained Easysland, who won this race back in 2020 and was an admirable second last year, although hasn't found his form for current connections. Tiger Roll holds a couple of those on form and if managing to get the better of his younger compatriot Prengarde, he would have to have a massive chance.
Tiger Roll himself comes into this race in not dissimilar form to last year having run in a handicap hurdle at Navan. He showed plenty of spark early in the race before fading late. That race was run on soft ground which wouldn't suited Tiger Roll and he is sure to improve an awful lot for that effort and connections seem to be very happy that they have the horse in a great place. Considering Gordon Elliott has held the key to this horse over the last number of years, with keeping him sound and keeping him sweet – you have to take that as a big bonus.
Given his career record and given the general hype around the horse – you would be disappointed if this horse was not to perform to his best and not give us a proper way to appreciate how good he has been. Horses that win multiple times at the Cheltenham Festival are few and far between, and we will only end up missing them in a few years if we don’t support them now. Tiger Roll has a brilliant chance of making it six wins at the Festival and done today, and fingers crossed he can strut his stuff one last time on the big stage.
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