Cue Card confirmed for the Gold cup!
Although Bishop admits odds-on Gold Cup favourite Thistlecrack will be tough to beat, she said Cue Card might not have been at his best at Kempton and deserves another crack at the showpiece contest, in which he fell three out last year with all to play for.
“We’re going for the Gold Cup,” she said. “We’ve had a talk about it and that’s what we’ve decided.
“Now we’ve made our minds up we haven’t got to keep talking about it. That’s what we’re going to do. I don’t know what the opposition will be, but he deserves to go and take his chance.
“Paddy [Brennan] thinks the ground might have been a factor in the King George. We got to Kempton early and they gave the going as good, and I thought then it might not be on his side. Paddy said it was the same as at Wetherby and he wasn’t at his best there. If he wasn’t at his best at Kempton, he actually did well to finish second.
“They are reasons rather than excuses. Probably the ground was too dry for him. And horses can be fine one day and not so fine the next, can’t they? He seemed to bounce back when he got home, so it might have been that he had an off day.”
Cue Card finished three and a quarter lengths behind the eased-down Thistlecrack and a short head in front of third-placed Silviniaco Conti. He is due to have his next start in the Betfair Ascot Chase on February 21.
Bishop continued: “I don’t know if there’s a horse that can live with Thistlecrack, but all his career Cue Card has never run away from anything. His races have always been strong races.
“Gold Cup day will be exactly seven years since he won the Bumper, and he does like Cheltenham.
“I’d rather him go and have a try there than go for something else. I expect it will be his last chance of going for the Gold Cup. He’ll do his best and we’ll see how it goes.”
Same day, same colours... easy to know which one to cheer on :very_drunk:
