JOCKEY Tom Scudamore expressed his full faith in Cheltenham Gold Cup favourite Thistlecrack, claiming “you’ve got to trust” the Colin Tizzard-trained stable star.

With Scudamore on board, Thistlecrack’s unbeaten record over fences since switching to the larger obstacles this season went up in smoke on Saturday, as he was defeated by Many Clouds, who sadly collapsed and died after the race.

Despite the shock defeat for the King George winner, Scudamore insisted the nine-year-old will “learn an awful lot from it”

Speaking on At The Races’ ‘On The Line’ show, Scudamore said: “In some respects, to the observer, he’s lost that bit of invincibility that he’s had for the past 18 months or so, but we’ve seen in sport this weekend with the Australian Open that sometimes it’s a bit early to write people off.

“But if you look through history all the good horses – bar Frankel – are beaten at some point and I’d rather it was in January than in March.

“For a horse having his fifth run over fences I thought he coped fantastically and he’ll learn an awful lot from it. Any fears over his jumping, as far as I’m concerned, are non-existent.”

He added: “The one thing with Thistlecrack is that you’ve got to trust him, you’ve got to allow him to do what he wants in many ways, and it was the same over hurdles.

“He’s jumped well over 100 fences in public now and he’s made one-and-a-half mistakes.

“For a novice having his fifth run over fences I thought that was pretty extraordinary really.

“From my point of view it’s people looking for something to say.”