Wily Walsh earns a Gold star

YOU would have to describe this as a nerves of steel drive.

Ruby Walsh went down the inside on Kauto Star to land yesterday’s totesport Cheltenham Gold Cup and only a man utterly at peace with his talent could have taken such a decision.

Kauto Star simply exploded in the closing stages, despite his now trademark blunder at the final fence, to beat a gallant Exotic Dancer and fulfil a boyhood dream for Walsh, surely one of the greatest, if not the greatest, National Hunt riders of all time.