All eyes on Kauto as Nicholls ponders whether to gamble on Gold Cup hero

They will determine whether this iconic horse of a lifetime, a white-faced veteran at the age of 12 that refuses to be written off, can take his place in the Betfred Cheltenham Gold Cup – the blue riband race of this week’s National Hunt Festival.

All eyes are on a horse who has been in the form of his life this season after twice rolling back the years to defeat Long Run, last year’s Gold Cup victor.

Put simply, a Cheltenham without Kauto Star would be like watching a mesmeric Barcelona football team devoid of Lionel Messi, or a golfing major without the buccaneering world No1 Rory McIlroy.

That is how much this equine superstar means to his sport and why he topped a Racing For Change online poll last night to name Britain’s most popular horse in the 21st century, Kauto Star streaking clear of Sea The Stars and Frankel in the race for the public’s affection.

It is also indicative of the horse’s popularity that trainer Paul Nicholls has had to issue daily medical bulletins on Kauto Star’s progress from his Ditcheat yard in deepest Somerset since an unaccustomed schooling fall two-and- a-half weeks ago left his Gold Cup participation hanging nervously in the balance.

All the indications, after a successful racecourse canter at Wincanton on Friday, are that Kauto Star will make Friday’s stellar line-up.

“You would be disappointed if he couldn’t get there. We’ve still got five or six days to go yet, but we’re more confident now,” said an optimistic-sounding Nicholls, who believes his stable star is showing the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old.

“We want to run him, not just to make the numbers up, but to be competitive and have a big chance. We’re very nearly there.”

This is, of course, not the first time that Kauto Star’s jumping has been the subject of conjecture. When he won his first Gold Cup in 2007, the question was not his class – but whether he would actually complete the Cheltenham course after developing an unfortunate tendency to blunder his way through the final fence of his races.

As big race jockey Ruby Walsh and Kauto Star turned for home on that sun-kissed afternoon, with champion jockey AP McCoy giving chase on the gallant Exotic Dancer, the 60,000 gathered in the shadow of Cleeve Hill waited as the gelding approached the last obstacle and, as expected, ploughed through the top; his front take-off legs only just getting high enough.

The magnitude of his mistake was such that lesser horses would not have recovered to power up the punishing final hill that only champions conquer, but Kauto Star is no normal horse.

The look on Walsh’s face as Kauto Star passed the packed grandstands on his return to the winner’s enclosure is one that will never be forgotten; that knowing look of a consummate horseman, who knew this was the beginning of a very special love affair with the horse that would carry him to greatness and come to define his career.

It was also the denouement to the 2006-07 campaign when Kauto Star displayed the versatility that is the hallmark of racing greats like Arkle, Dawn Run and Desert Orchid – he had won the prestigious Tingle Creek Chase for two mile champions before powering up the Cheltenham hill at the end of three-and-a-quarter miles of remorseless galloping.

In the saddle for the Tingle Creek was former Gold Cup-winning jockey Mick Fitzgerald, one of just three riders to pilot Kauto Star to victory.

“He just continues to surprise you,” Fitzgerald told the Yorkshire Post last night.

“Back then, he gave me the feel of a very good horse. Why? Because you feel you are still in the comfort zone when, in fact, you are going flat out in a Grade One race for two mile chasers, and they don’t come much faster than that. What I don’t think has been given sufficient credit is the ability of Paul Nicholls to get him right for seven successive Festivals and six Gold Cups. That is remarkable.

“I don’t know if he’ll win – he has got to get there first – but a win, well it would be right up there with Desert Orchid or Dawn Run doing the Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup double.”

Victory would also be a vindication for Nicholls defying public sentiment and keeping the Clive Smith-owned horse in training following a hideous fall in the 2010 Gold Cup – and a very below-par performance in Punchestown at the end of last season.

Yet his triumphs this season in both the Betfair Chase, and then a record-breaking fifth King George Chase at an emotional Kempton on Boxing Day, have been career highlights.

They have also been tactical masterpieces, Walsh controlling the pace from the front and putting Long Run’s jumping under pressure. The challenge is repeating this feat in a Gold Cup where the pace will be relentless from the off.

However, Kauto Star’s chances will be easier if David Pipe confirms this morning that his precocious novice Grands Crus will contest Wednesday’s RSA Chase for novice chasers rather than the Gold Cup.

The eye-catching Grands Crus has raced just three times over fences – at least Dawn Run had contested four steeplechases before she broke Yorkshire hearts in beating the Monica Dickinson-trained Wayward lad in the final stride of the 1986 renewal.

He, and jockey Tom Scudamore, also suffered the indignity of a schooling fall last Friday, an unfortunate occurrence that is expected to sway connections towards the RSA.

This agonising decision will also be influenced by schooling reports from Pipe’s rival West Country yard.

For, at his very best, an ageless Kauto Star is still the horse to beat – despite the fitness fright of the past fortnight.

Can ‘big four’ winners of 2011 be first to defend crowns?

BOOKMAKER Paddy Power rates the chances of all four ‘big’ defending champions – Hurricane Fly, Sizing Europe, Big Buck’s and Long Run – retaining their crowns at the Cheltenham Festival at 18-1 in an unprecedented feat, while it is a 16-1 shout that none will do so.

Punters should be wary of the fate of the 2003 champions – Rooster Booster, Moscow Flyer, Baracouda and Best Mate – when they were tipped to defend the Champion Hurdle, Champion Chase, World Hurdle and Gold Cup the following year. Only Best Mate prevailed, completing a third-straight Gold Cup win for trainer Henrietta Knight and Jim Culloty – and only after the victorious rider extricated himself from an unpromising position on the downhill run to the home turn.

For the record, Rooster Booster was second to Hardy Eustace, Moscow Flyer unseated Barry Geraghty. And, ironically, it was Geraghty in the saddle when Iris’s Gift beat Baracouda and jockey Thierry Doumen.