Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2009 5:15 pm Post subject: Alastair Down on Kauto Star
By Alastair Down10.36AM 14 MAR 2009
ON ONE of jump racing's imperishable afternoons Kauto Star put both his brilliance and resilience forever beyond question with a flawless display that brooked no argument that he belongs among the sport's genuine greats.
For as long as punters lift pints in pubs, they will talk about the day Kauto Star won back his Gold Cup crown. Gone was the Kauto Star of 12 months ago, replaced by a chaser at his rampant best, measuring fences with a watchmaker's precision and powering along in such a fashion that he was bossing the race throughout.
Here was the horse who has it all at every trip, the Kauto Star who had the pure speed for two Tingle Creeks, the class that has taken the King George three times and the stamina and courage to power home in two Gold Cups. Few indeed are the chasers who can rule all those roosts - precious few, and all the more fabulous for their rarity.
And if on this afternoon of high emotion Kauto Star leapt from the zones of respect and affection to the higher reaches of true attachment and affection, at least part of the feelgood factor generated by this spellbinding race lay in the mighty performance of a resurgent Denman in second place.
He jumped with all his old zest and stuck on little less than heroically to hold Exotic Dancer at bay for second.
In running such a mighty race, Denman banished the spectre of the out-of-sorts shadow of his former self we saw on his first dismally depressing run of the season.
It was almost like having two Gold Cup results to cheer - Kauto Star winning the day in a league of his own with Denman also a glorious winner, because the big horse won his all-important battle to be back in business.
He came in tired and weary, well ahead of Kauto Star, to a reception that dwarfed that which several winners had received during the week, but it was nothing to compare with the sustained roar of joyous approval that met Kauto Star.
With Ruby on top beaming fit to crack a jaw, Kauto Star made his honoured way down the horsewalk in front of stands and lawn that erupted in a heaving, raucous ferment of joyous appreciation.
Up through the paddock he came, king of the Cheltenham hill once more, to enter the winner's enclosure as the first horse ever to regain a GoldCup crown.
The way we welcome winners at Cheltenham and the ritual of our acknowledgement are not small and insignificant things.
You and I don't live with the great horses, see them every morning or walk short yards to rub noses as they poke heads over box doors.
So the great racing public will travel long miles and pay good money to see them fleetingly, or glimpse them via the artificial proximity of the television.
But when a Gold Cup winner walks in to stand steaming at the centre of the jumping universe it is our infrequent opportunity to get up close to the animal who has just lifted 60,000 fellow souls aloft and open our throats, long and loud, in thanks. Small wonder we make a big noise.
As Kauto Star powered away from the second-last with the race won and Cheltenham fast approaching the boil, just the final fence - no small peril in races past - lay between him andthe door marked ‘Legends'.
You could see Ruby alert to every signal he was getting, covering every eventuality from clean leap to costly clout, and as the very moment of take-off approached he slapped his ally three times down the shoulder, smacking out the tattoo, "Get This Right".
But there was no glitch. Kauto Star slotted the perfect final-fence jump, the last point of drama conquered in a race that had everything.
Rarely, if ever, have I witnessed a race at Cheltenham so perfect as a spectacle and so fulfilling in its result.
Paul Nicholls, Ruby Walsh and indeed Clive Smith have enjoyed a week that only the gods could hand out.
Andwhile their happiness will be immeasurable and their satisfaction beyond fathom, all of us on hand for the Gold Cup also walk away as winners.
Strange as it may sound, the 6min 44sec of Friday's race added up to one of jumping's finest hours.
And when some cynic tells you that we perhaps invest too much in the Cheltenham Festival, that the hype is overdone and that there are other great racing occasions, then shake your head gently and remind them of this race, on this day, when Kauto Star transformed the making of racing history into something memorably effortless as he galloped and jumped his way into the inner circle of the indisputably special.
Glittering was the crown regained and utterly magnificent the wearer of it.
Down is an obnoxious fat, public school boy who ensures that racing is a minority sport on TV! He should be nowehere near a camera and stick to writing his rubbish in the Post and Sunday Mirror.
Get Mat Chapman on C4 as the lead presenter for Cheltenham and lets get racing out to the masses and use this great festival to promote the sport in a 21st century way rather than the victorian way of thinking that inhibits Fat Boy Down.
Down and Winstanley are the 2 biggest irritant jounalists in the sport.
BW _________________ Theres Only One Dickie Hills!
we'll have to agree to disagree on that Bobby.
Would rather have somebody with a bit of intelligence like Down representing our sport than that brainless loudmouth Chapman. All he does is trivialise and try to make controversy. A poor mans McCririck without the brain power.
I was out all last Tuesday so watched the highlights programme. The last 3 mins of which was dedicated to Fat Boy regaling us with some piss poor poetry about the day...............when instead I could have seen more of the racing action ffrom the day.
IMO Down is a bit too smug and full of himself and I know many people who switch off the TV when he is on, but on the other hand love the way Chapman shows off his enthusiasm and his never short to hammer a trainer or jockey for wrongdoing!
I love all the other C4 presenters (well apart from Leslie Graham) but just wish they would dispense with Down and his 19th century patois!!! _________________ Theres Only One Dickie Hills!
I actually look forward to Downs pieces on Ch4 every year, and think they are one of the highlights of the week.
I must be older and more old fashioned than you
It's the same BS every year from Down, "Ampitheatre's, Equine Gladiators" and "Gladitorial battles". The man is a prick, the stuff he's written about Fallon is a disgrace considering he's in a very big glass house himself. And did I notice during those useless pieces on Ch4 with Martin Pipe, Mick Fitz and Ted "I haven't trained a Winner Since Papillon" Walsh he was drinking beer during his dinner? I hope it was non alcoholic Al!!! _________________ King Kieren is an innocent man!
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