He won as many Grade One races – nine – as he spent seasons in training, too. By the time his retirement was announced at the end of the following campaign, Cue Card’s career earnings stood at £1,447,454 and he bowed out as the winner of 16 of his 41 starts. There were a couple more big days in Cue Card yet as he won his third Betfair Chase and his second Ascot Chase in 2016/17 despite not being at his very best. Regrettably for his connections, that one defeat proved to be particularly costly as, after winning the Betfair Chase and King George earlier that season, Cue Card still held every chance of landing a £1-million bonus when falling at the third-last in the Cheltenham Gold Cup. With all that said, there is perhaps no greater tribute to Tizzard’s skills that Cue Card returned as good a horse as ever in 2015/16, a campaign in which he was beaten just once in five starts.
He missed the second half of that season after suffering a pelvic fracture and there were definite signs when he returned in 2014/15 that he was no longer the force of old, finishing well held in all five starts. That was Tizzard’s first victory at the Festival – Oiseau de Nuit gave him his second when winning the Grand Annual the following year – but it wasn’t until 2013 that Cue Card doubled his own tally at the meeting in the Ryanair Chase (he had finished fourth in the 2011 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle and was then runner-up to a certain Sprinter Sacre in the 2012 Arkle).Ĭue Card reinvented himself as a staying chaser in the years after his Ryanair victory, though injury threatened to derail his career after a brilliant win in the 2013 Betfair Chase at Haydock. He made a total mockery of his outsider status in the race itself, however, quickening right away in the final furlong to win by eight lengths in the style of a potential top-notcher. Colin Tizzard first tasted Grade One success with Joe Lively in the 2007 Feltham Novices’ Chase at Kempton, but it wasn’t until Cue Card came along at the start of the next decade that things truly went to the next level.įollowing an impressive debut victory in a Fontwell bumper in January 2010, Cue Card was then sent off at 40/1 for the Champion Bumper at the Cheltenham Festival, attracting little support in the betting against the battalions trained by Willie Mullins, Paul Nicholls and co.
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