HE’S come a long way from his early days living in a caravan on a farm his father rented, and while the falling price of milk has put a dent in the value of his dairy herd, Colin Tizzard isn’t complaining.

As one door closes, another inevitably opens when you happen to have Tizzard’s can-do outlook on life, and a decision made to train a few horses to facilitate the fledgling riding career of son Joe has gradually led him to the very top of the National Hunt game.

Even before the wonderfully tough and enthusiastic Cue Card landed the first of his nine Grade 1 wins in the 2010 Champion Bumper at Cheltenham, Tizzard was noted by good judges as punching above his weight, with Mister One a dual Cheltenham winner as far back as 1999, and winner of the Devon National when beating a mare called Plaid Maid who has subsequently found fame as the dam of Hennessy winner Carruthers and Gold Cup hero Coneygree.

Joe Lively raised the Tizzard profile further by winning a hatful of races over fences, including the Grade 1 Feltham at Kempton, but it was the emergence of a true superstar in Cue Card which thrust the Tizzard team into the spotlight. How would the farmer with the distinctive Dorset burr cope with the pressure of competing against the most professional yards in the country? Very well thanks, was the succinct answer.

PERSPECTIVE

Racing is a high-pressure game, and that pressure tells on the most successful trainers, with a run of bad luck likely to lead to terse or non-existent interviews with the media, but whatever hand he’s been dealt on the track, Colin is rarely anything other than sanguine.

A shrug of the shoulders and a philosophical summary of events is the standard response - even when revealing his disappointment at ruling Gold Cup favourite Thistlecrack out for the season, he couldn’t help adding: “no one’s died, and you need a bit of perspective.”

That’s not to say that he doesn’t enjoy the highs, however, and he could barely suppress a grin throughout the afternoon at Ascot recently when Cue Card again silenced his critics by skipping away with the Ascot Chase, looking more spring-heeled than he did when landing the same prize as a seven-year-old pretender on his way to Cheltenham Festival glory.

In 2013, it was the Ryanair, but even a lacklustre effort in the King George couldn’t persuade veteran owner Jean Bishop to enter him in that race this term, and he’s now favourite to become the first horse of his age to win the Gold Cup since the legendary Mandarin in 1962.

It’s a result which would prove almost universally popular, as it’s hard to find a soul who can say anything negative about the character of horse or connections.

Popularity and success don’t always go hand in hand in the sporting arena, but if anything sets Colin Tizzard apart from his contemporaries other than his conspicuous success, it’s the lack of jealousy among his peers. Another trainer who has been successful at the highest level at Cheltenham in March told me earlier this season that, while he hated losing, he’d rather lose to a Tizzard horse than any other.

“There are always trainers who it irks you to lose to,” he told me, “but I can’t think of anyone who begrudges Colin his success, and that speaks volumes.” It’s true that Tizzard’s outlook rather betrays his farming origins, and there used to be a bit of mickey-taking about the cattle man playing at training racehorses, while the accent and soft-spoken mannerisms are easily mimicked, but no one is laughing at him now, and for very good reason.

BIG RACE SUCCESS

The Venn Farm horses (latterly to become the Spurles Farm horses when a new stable was built up the road from the original yard) have shown their trainer to be anything but a one-trick pony, and he has landed handicaps with Festival outsiders Golden Chieftain (28/1) and Oiseau De Nuit (40/1) in recent years.

His haul of Grade 1 races has been remarkable, and of the 40 races of that calibre in the calendar, he has won nine in the past 12 months, which is more than Paul Nicholls and Nicky Henderson combined. The decision to move his horses, who had been living cheek by jowl with the dairy herd, to a purpose-built barn was an expensive undertaking, but has already justified itself, and when Alan Potts decided to entrust Tizzard with a tranche of expensive talent, the move was twice blessed.

As well as 15 horses who arrived from Ireland, Potts has snapped up proven performers Alary and Fox Norton as well as much-vaunted point recruits Finian’s Oscar and Flemenshill to add to his team, shelling out a seven-figure sum to do so. That all four headed straight to Spurles Farm is some statement of intent from the Yorkshire mining magnate.

LUCKY

If Tizzard has been lucky to some extent that the untimely retirement of Colm Murphy as well as the decision of Potts and wife Ann to split with Henry de Bromhead has boosted his stable strength, it’s no coincidence that the horses are heading where they are rather than to one of the other big names, and it’s Colin’s ability to engender trust as well as his results on the track which has attracted the wily Potts.

It started with a chance encounter in the bar at Cheltenham’s 2016 Festival, and while the fruit of that meeting needed patience in the ripening, none are more patient than Colin, and in son Joe he has an affable lieutenant whose fondness for a social drink is proving a potent weapon in attracting and keeping new owners.

Good guys really can prosper in the cut-throat world of horse racing, and the Tizzard family are living proof. Anyone who thinks this so-called bubble is soon to burst could find themselves waiting an awfully long time.