As we build-up to Cheltenham Competition week, we have a look again at one of many biggest Gold Cup winners of all time, Kauto Star, who was the one horse to regain victory within the race after a foul run in between years.

By Julian Muscat

The period of steeplechasers excelling at a wide range of journeys had all however run its course by the brand new millennium’s daybreak. Desert Orchid was the final of this uncommon and thrilling breed, and he had left the stage 10 years earlier. 

But simply when the idea of 1 horse dominating over all distances appeared like wishful pondering, alongside got here a bay gelding with a broad white blaze who would do exactly that.

Kauto Star – for six years from 2005 he was peerless over any distance. All of it got here alike to the steeplechaser who received the King George VI Chase a document 5 occasions, the Betfair Chase 4 occasions, the Cheltenham Gold Cup twice and the Tingle Creek Chase on each events he contested the two-mile characteristic.

“There’s no query he would have received a number of Champion Chases over two miles had we requested him to do this,” asserts his coach, Paul Nicholls. 

For sure, we’ve not seen his like since.

Jockey Ruby Walsh displays. “Kauto Star picked up two accidents as a younger horse and would have some heavy falls later, nevertheless it by no means frightened him. He was courageous, arduous and powerful of thoughts in addition to being bodily robust.”

These attributes grew to become self-evident through the 2006–07 season, when Kauto Star swept all earlier than him. He began by profitable over two-and-a-half miles earlier than Paul stepped him as much as three miles for the primary time within the Betfair Chase, during which he toyed with a high-class discipline to win by 17 lengths.

“That was a big day,” Ruby says. “It advised us that he stayed; that he could possibly be a Gold Cup horse. He was so robust, and I keep in mind pondering: ‘That is totally different.’ I might really feel his energy by the reins although I used to be attempting to preserve him, and I solely quickened up for one furlong. There was a lot left within the tank. It was unbelievable.”

Kauto Star was inexorably on the march, though Paul made one final nod to the previous. Two weeks after the Betfair Chase, during which the horse regarded like a Gold Cup winner in ready, Paul audaciously saddled him for the Tingle Creek Chase again over two miles.

“Six days earlier than the Tingle Creek, I advised Ruby I used to be pondering of operating him and he mentioned we’d spent all this time educating him to settle; why take him again right into a velocity take a look at?,” Paul relates. “Then Ruby rang me again two minutes later to say we might all be useless tomorrow; let’s run.”

The result was one other facile victory, after which Kauto Star received his first King George VI Chase at Kempton – and 10 weeks later, his first Gold Cup at Cheltenham. It was a flawless marketing campaign.

Lengthy Run and (nearside) Kauto Star on the primary circuit of the King George VI

Kauto Star would dominate thereafter regardless of shedding his Gold Cup crown to stablemate Denman in 2008, when he put in a shoddy spherical of leaping. However he avenged that defeat the next 12 months when he strode clear away from Denman to win by 13 lengths.

“He was magnificent that day; he received as he preferred,” proprietor Clive Smith enthuses. “He was the primary horse to reclaim the Gold Cup, having misplaced it the 12 months earlier than, and he was given the very best [official] ranking of any horse since Arkle.”

A 3rd Gold Cup beckoned in 2010, however Kauto Star blundered badly on the primary circuit earlier than he fell on the fourth-last. Then he misplaced his aura of invincibility. He was roundly crushed by Lengthy Run, 5 years his junior, in each the King George and the Gold Cup earlier than he was ignominiously pulled up at Punchestown.

Kauto Star en-route to one in all his King George VI victories

Nevertheless, simply when he regarded spent, he got here once more the next season. Kauto Star introduced the home down in profitable his fourth Betfair Chase and his fifth King George, each occasions from Lengthy Run.

“They had been the 2 races I loved most of all,” Paul says. “Individuals had been saying he ought to have been retired and we had been being grasping. My neck was on the chopping block however at house he was within the type of his life, undoubtedly pretty much as good going into his twelfth 12 months as at another stage in his profession.”

Though Ruby and Clive had been of the same mindset, a education fall forward of the 2012 Gold Cup shook Kauto Star to the core. There can be no final unbelievable act in a profession of a number of comebacks; Kauto Star was pulled up early within the race and sure for retirement.

His legacy? “With none doubt he was the horse of a lifetime,” Paul says. “Along with his class, he was sound and resilient whereas the likes of Lengthy Run and the others all fell away.”

Ruby doesn’t hesitate to explain Kauto Star as the very best horse he rode in an extended and distinguished profession. 

“He was a celebrity who had a lot velocity and skill,” he says, “and he stored on coming again. He was simply an unbelievable racehorse.”

As for Clive, the reminiscences linger. 

“I used to be there for each one in all his 31 races. I used to be nervous when watching him and was at all times glad when he’d jumped the primary few fences, after which I wasn’t so involved for his security. He was completely particular; I used to be in awe of him.”

Paul is just not overly sentimental himself however his voice drops an octave when requested what life has been like since Kauto Star’s retirement. 

“I’ve been fortunate sufficient to have had some excellent horses,” says the 12-time champion coach. “It is going to be nearly unattainable to search out one other like Kauto Star – however that received’t cease me attempting.” 

Kauto Star and Denman earlier than the beginning of the Gold Cup on the 2008 Cheltenham Competition

Kauto Star: how his story began

Kauto Star’s story was punctuated by highs and lows all through a stellar profession. It began in France, the place he received 4 of his 10 outings earlier than his switch to Paul’s Somerset stables. His prowess was such that he’d earned the sobriquet “l’Extraterrestre”.

France is the place Kauto Star may need stayed however for an unlikely sequence of occasions. In Could 2004, three days earlier than Kauto Star received a Grade Three hurdle race at Auteuil, Clive left the public sale ring at Doncaster not sure whether or not to snigger or cry. His bid of 520,000 guineas for Garde Champetre, a promising novice hurdler, was trumped by JP McManus, who’d bid an additional 10,000 guineas to safe the horse.

In consequence, Clive had a stash burning a gap in his pocket. He’d been alerted to Kauto Star’s availability and was sufficiently to ship a vet to the stables of Serge Foucher, who skilled the horse in north-west France. However Kauto Star wouldn’t play ball.

“The vet rang me from France to say Kauto Star had refused level clean to be scoped,” Clive remembers of the process to evaluate a horse’s respiration mechanism. “That had occurred earlier than, apparently. Different individuals had tried to purchase him however pulled out due to it. After the implications had been defined to me, I assumed: ‘Properly, let’s purchase him anyway.’”

Six months after Kauto Star’s arrival in Britain, Paul rang his steady jockey, Ruby, with the promise of a festive present. 

“I entered the horse at Newbury simply after Christmas and advised Ruby I had one thing for him to look ahead to,” Paul relates. “And I’ll at all times keep in mind the smile on Ruby’s face when he got here again into the winner’s enclosure. He didn’t have to say something.”

Ruby was blown away. 

“It was novices’ chase and he completely bolted in,” he says. “It was like he by no means got here out of second gear.”

For all that, Ruby didn’t really feel Kauto Star was a legend within the making. 

“I used to be simply hoping he would make up right into a horse for the Arkle Chase [for two-mile novice chasers],” he remembers. “I had no concept he would go on to realize what he did.”

Then calamity struck. Kauto Star was cantering to victory on his subsequent begin at Exeter when he fell on the second-last. Ruby scrambled to remount, after which the mixture rallied, regardless of a final-flight blunder, to come back up narrowly quick in a photo-finish. Insult was added to damage when Kauto Star returned house with a hock fracture that sidelined him for 10 months.

Paul believes the setback may need been a blessing in disguise. 

“It definitely didn’t do the horse any hurt,” he suggests. “It meant he had loads of time to fill out. He simply obtained larger, higher and stronger.”

There have been points on one other entrance, nonetheless. Kauto Star was proving a handful, a lot in order that when he moved into the highest yard at Ditcheat in the summertime of 2005, no person wished to journey him out. The duty was lastly delegated to Clifford Baker, a former jockey and Paul’s long-standing right-hand man.

“He was sharp when he was out within the lanes,” Clifford relates, “however I’ll always remember the primary time I rode him on the gallops. He went from one finish to the opposite and gave me a really feel I’d by no means had from one other horse, earlier than or since. He tanked all the best way up the hill – and he’d solely been in for every week. I used to be amazed.”

In hindsight, these formative essays had been the making of Kauto Star. He was proud and impetuous, having proved tough to interrupt in. Nice retailer was set in encouraging him to chill out, though he was an excessive amount of his personal man to acquiesce completely.

“He hated site visitors,” Clifford remembers. “In the future he kicked a automobile on the street and put the largest dent within the door you’ve ever seen. He’d usually whip spherical and take me the fallacious method, ducking about everywhere, however when he was on the gallops he was an actual professional.”

Clifford isn’t vulnerable to take horses into his coronary heart, however Kauto Star was totally different. 

“I rode him for the very best a part of eight years,” Clifford relates. “We had our hiccups right here and there, however he was an actual pleasure to journey. I’d by no means been sentimental a few horse earlier than him, and I haven’t been since.”

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H&H editor-in-chief

Sarah has greater than 20 years expertise as an equestrian journalist and editor. She has reported from main championships together with the Europeans and the World Equestrian Video games. She has co-written books on equestrianism together with The Full Illustrated Encyclopedia of Horses & Ponies. Sarah has ridden since childhood, owned horses and ponies for over 25 years, and labored for and skilled with Olympic gold medallist occasion rider Leslie Legislation previous to going to college.