The beast rolls!
 

I hope the rest of you got a chance to see the Cheltenham Gold Cup because it was an incredible exhibition of relentless gallopping and perfect fencing by Denman. He was a tired horse coming up the hill to the wire, but he had already run the others into the ground, including the defending champion Kauto Star. Paul Nicholls trained the first three home, the first such training feat since Michael Dickinson (aka the 'mad genius') trained the first FIVE home in the Gold Cup 25 years ago.

I'm over the moon for this big horse. Everyone has been saying he's too slow to beat Kauto....... I have had to keep quiet about what exactly I wanted to say to those people, but what a load of tosh!

I've said it before, but Denman is the best staying chaser I have seen.

Well done big fella....... A few people knew you were the real deal.

I suppose you can guess that I am a Denman fan, too. Do you know if he is named for Trevor Denman, the racecaller in the US? The sire's name, Presenting, makes this a possibility.

I very much doubt it but I cannot say for sure.

He just seems to have everything you want in an exceptional racehorse. I was never convinced Kauto Star was invincible and I didn't even think his Gold Cup win last year was that good at all. However, one thing Kauto did prove to me, which I didn't think he would was that he did stay the Gold Cup trip.

People are saying he ran a long way below his usual, but I'm struggling to see that. Granted, he may have run two or three pounds below his best but I cannot see how it was any worse than that. He and Exotic Dancer have had many races against eachother and have often finished pretty close to one another. Exotic Dancer was beaten out of sight on Friday.

He didn't jump with his usual fluency, but I would say that was because he simply couldn't jump well AND try and keep up with that tank that is Denman.

Better ground probably would have seen Kauto finish closer to Denman, but would better ground make more than a seven length difference? We cannot say for sure, but I doubt it.

It was a fantastic performance by Denman, one in which I am honoured to day "I was there that day".

The ironic thing is that while Denman performance was brilliant and overtook the previous best chaser in training, a 5yo gazumped the two of them with the most scintillating performance that Ive ever seen on a racecourse.. Master Minded was incredible and even though he could well be an early maturing French bred, there could still be alot more to come from him (same comments apply to Denman!). I really hope he goes to Punchestown where he would actually receive 7 pounds from his elders..

I was actually left gobsmacked by Master Minded. How can any horse make such a mockery out of a class field like that, especially at such a demanding track?

Superb performance.