Il Est Francais ready to enjoy ‘home’ comforts in Cheltenham bid

Tom George is preparing to welcome Cheltenham Festival hope Il Est Francais to his Gloucestershire base, as he dreams of watching his son Noel strike at the showpiece meeting with his pair of French raiders.

While many of the overseas contenders will set up base at the racecourse stables, Il Est Francais will have the advantage of some home comforts by residing at the George family’s Down Farm during his visit to the UK.

Both Galileo – not to be confused with Aidan O’Brien’s Derby hero of the same name – and Summerville Boy have struck at Prestbury Park’s flagship event for George, but this time around the baton has firmly passed to his son and his quest to break his own Festival duck with two live chances.

Noel George and training partner Amanda Zetterholm have leading claims in the opening day Fred Winter with Stencil, but of course most eyes will be focussed on their King George runner-up who is very likely to contest Thursday’s Ryanair Chase in a possible clash with Willie Mullins’ Fact To File.

“We’re looking forward to seeing Il Est Francais here next week and it is a big team effort,” said George.

“You can’t get better than your son doing it and I get a bigger buzz out of him winning races than myself really.

“I spoke to Noel and (jockey) James Reveley this morning and everyone is happy with the way he has schooled and they are just waiting to see for certain what the ground is like, but they are leaning towards the Ryanair unless anything changes and we’re looking forward to it.”

George may not have as many stars as he did in the days of Nacarat and God’s Own, but he served a reminder of his own training talents when sending the exciting Heron In The Park to strike at Newbury on Saturday.

Although his number of runners may have dropped off in recent seasons, he explained he is still a central figure in a much wider organisation – with father and son working in unison with great success.

George continued: “People say where are your runners, but we’re all under the same banner really and I’m just very proud of how Noel and Amanda have got the whole thing going, having started out with just a few of my old handicappers over there. We just kept on improving them and we’ve got a lot of exciting horses both here and in France now.

“A lot of my owners have supported Noel and Amanda, which has been an important thing and been a great foundation for them.

“The majority of my owners send horses to me and then they go off to France and what Noel and Amanda have achieved over there is unbelievable. But we’re very much a big part of it here – I’ve got a lot of horses here that are Noel and Amanda’s and we’re all part of a team.

“We’ve got that side of the operation running smoothly and he’s got runners in France that are mine and we’re working it as a team and so far we couldn’t have had a better start for the last few years.”