STRANGE thing, but Thistlecrack probably stepped up on anything that he had done before over fences in finishing second behind Many Clouds on Saturday, despite the fact that bookmakers extended his odds for the Gold Cup on the back of his defeat.

Easy in hindsight of course, but you can argue that Colin Tizzard’s horse should not have been odds-on for the Gold Cup before Saturday’s race: a novice who had raced just four times over fences, never against more than four rivals, back at the track at which he had put up the least impressive performance of his chasing career.