Triple Trade

The high point of Triple Trade's career came in a remarkable six-week spell in late 2023, when it won at Cheltenham in November and then followed up with another victory at Ascot in December. Both were top-level Class 2 races, the kind where the prize money is serious and the competition doesn't do you any favours. Winning one of those in a season is an achievement. Winning two in a row, at two of the most famous tracks in Britain, is the sort of sequence that defines a career. Jockey Brendan Powell, who knows this horse better than almost anyone — 7 wins together from 26 races, a 27% win rate, or roughly 1 in every 4 — admitted after Ascot that even he thought a bad jumping error might cost them, only for Triple Trade to dig in and hold on.

The partnership with Powell is worth noting. He has been on board for all seven wins, and his post-Ascot comments pointed to something important: Triple Trade is not a horse that does much when it gets to the front. It needs a lead, and it needs careful placing. That is a quirk that takes time to understand, and Powell clearly understands it.

Trainer Joe Tizzard has had 58 winners this season from his yard in Dorset, so this is a team in form. He was frank about a difficult spell — Triple Trade needed surgery on a sinus problem that knocked it out for a period — but the silver lining was that the horse dropped down in the official ratings, giving it a more manageable weight in races. Now Tizzard is eyeing veteran chases, specifically a two-and-a-half-mile final at Haydock, and he wants wet, soft conditions to bring out the best in the horse. Given that Triple Trade has already shown it can win at the top level, a strong spring campaign does not sound like wishful thinking.