A scintillating victory for Kauto Star in Saturday's First Commercial Bank Chase at Ascot has well and truly set up the biggest showdown National Hunt racing has seen for nearly half a century.
On 14 March the talking will stop and (God willing) the clash between the Paul Nicholls pair, fittingly described by Denman's part owner, Harry Findley, as the Maserati and the Tank, will finally be on.
We've already declared our loyalty to the reigning champion in previous Blogs and Kauto Star's performance on Saturday reinforced our belief that he'll retain his crown at the Festival.
It was an imperious victory, which was overshadowed slightly by the post race injury scare that briefly threatened his participation in the Gold Cup. However, the fact is that he beat a much better field than Denman did in his trial (albeit not quite so easily) and in doing so jumped and travelled as well as he has probably ever done. Ruby Walsh's post race smile told us everything we needed to know as it was a rare show of emotion from the usually ice cool Irishman.
There is no pace that Denman can set that Kauto Star won’t be able to lie up with and he certainly wasn't stopping either on Saturday or in the King George, suggesting that stamina shouldn’t be an issue either, provided the ground is decent.
The Gold Cup will clearly be a race to saviour, rather than bet on, given the dominance (and, therefore, short prices) of the two principles. However, the race will offer some opportunities for punters, and the market without the big two looks particularly interesting.
With that in mind, there were two other performances of note on Saturday.
Firstly, Neptune Collonges was very impressive when humping top weight to victory in the big race at Wincanton. These days, Jon Hales' grey appears to prefer better ground, which is a big plus given the trend for good going at recent Festivals. He will also be suited by the fierce pace Denman is likely to set and so he could easily be part of a Paul Nicholls 1-2-3.
Meanwhile, at Gowran Park Kicking King's Gold Cup hopes seem to disappear, after a lacklustre performance saw him finish third behind rank outsider Ballistraw in the Red Mills Chase. Connections will be hoping that it was the bounce factor that caused Tom Taaffe's gelding to run so poorly. However, as we have highlighted previously, the form of his comeback race hasn't worked out at all well and it may be that it is asking too much of this former champ to reach the peak he did three years ago.
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