Gordon Elliott has confirmed that his star pupil will be running in April's Grand National.
Following a short surgical procedure in November, and fresh off the back of being named Horse of the Year at the 2019 Horse Racing Ireland Awards, Tiger Roll is well on the way to full recovery and on course to make 2020 a year of hat tricks.
Earlier in January, Elliott told The Racing Post via gooner news that the two-time National winner is “in great neck and back cantering away”.
He even indicated that the ten year old could be fit enough to tackle the Boyd Hurdle at Navan during mid-February, but he and the rest of the team are planning to “see how the next few weeks go” before confirming.
Whilst a good showing at Navan would no doubt count in his favour, Tiger Roll rarely needs to warm up for the big races, as he demonstrated with his two victories at Aintree and a succession of wins at Cheltenham.
Tiger Roll will “definitely” make Cheltenham in 2020, entering the Cross Country Chase for which, like the National, he already has two consecutive wins. If he were to win again this year, it would be the first in two hat tricks he's got the potential to snag in 2020, as well as being his fifth victory in six appearances at the Cheltenham Festival, according to gooner news. His only loss at the festival was in the 2015 Stayers' Hurdle where, as a five year old, he was thrown in at the deep end and struggled to run at his full form.
Although it's that second Grand National win that has dominated most of the press coverage about Michael O'Leary's “little rat of a thing”, and rightly so, his performance at last year's Glenfarclas Cross Country Chase was easily the highlight of the whole festival. Cheered on by thousands of fans and those nearest and dearest to him, who all gathered at the iconic racecourse, he cruised for almost four miles, criss-crossing the infield before storming ahead of the rest of the field to win by an incredible 22 lengths.
The pressure's on for Elliott to keep the newly-recovered 10 year old in tip top condition, not just in terms of National glory but also for that all-important third Cross Country Chase victory. In fact, so significant is Cheltenham to O'Leary that he initially wanted Tiger Roll's campaign for this season to be built around it. Declaring making a third attempt at a National win as “greedy” O'Leary instead preferred to focus on winning the Cross Country Chase in 2020, and even suggested retiring his champion on the spot if he was successful.
But the allure of setting a new world record at Aintree may have proven too much….
They said he couldn't do it
This time last year there was plenty of discussion around Tiger Roll's ability to secure a second consecutive Grand National win. Despite the remarkable little thoroughbred's ability, there were those who said he just wouldn't be able to pull it off. Boy, were they wrong.
It's a measure of just how great he is that he set off with odds last year as short as 4-1 to become the first since the iconic Red Rum to win more than one Grand National title. His eventual historic win was nothing short of legendary, and it's safe to say that a big percentage of the total £150 million in wagers that were placed during the festival went on backing him to be first past the post.
At present, horse racing odds websites and specialists are already listing Tiger Roll as the 7/1 favourite to win the National again this year, but it's likely they'll shorten even further to 5-1 – especially if he does win at Cheltenham in the weeks leading up to the famous Aintree meet.
This time around, though, we're expecting Tiger Roll to shoulder top weight, although he was carrying 11-5 in 2019 and it's unlikely that an extra 5lbs could make that much of a difference. Whilst a third consecutive National win would be the ultimate success, there's no doubt that whatever happens this season Tiger Roll's place in the history books is cemented.
