Don’t write off Kauto — Nicholls
The 2007 Cheltenham Gold Cup hero failed in his bid to win the Betfair Chase for the third year running when he stumbled on landing and unseated Sam Thomas.
He will now try to redeem his reputation at Kempton on Boxing Day in a race he has won for the past two years.
“I haven’t had chance to see the replay, but I did speak to Sam. I just want get home tonight to see the horse and get him right for the King George,” said the Ditcheat trainer.
“That’s what we are going to do, get him back to his best for that.”
The sponsors pushed Kauto Star out to 6-4 for the King George following his defeat on Saturday.
Nicholls later dismissed some claims that Kauto Star was past his best.
“Absolute bull****. I’ve never heard such rubbish. We should be enjoying horses like this, not knocking them all the time,” he said.
“As soon as people realise they can’t win every time, that it’s a horse race and that they are not machines, the better.
“To be fair to him, he would have won. It might not have been impressive but now it’s down to me to get him back to his very best for Kempton,” the Ditcheat trainersaid.
Nicholls had further reflections on the race.
“It’s always easy in hindsight to say we wish we’d have done this or done that,” he went on.
“What everybody seems to forget is that Ruby (Walsh) knows the horse better than anybody. He’s ridden him 16 times, Sam had only ridden him once before and he’s still learning about the horse a little bit.
“It’s easy to make judgements afterwards and say we should have done this or done that, whatever.
“He probably would have won. It might not have been an impressive performance the same as last year.
“I always find it easy with some of those horses to get them really ready first time out and it might sound silly.
“We went to Down Royal, we had to back off a week and then they’ve got to bounce back to top form.
“Sometimes some horses are better off with a big gap and fresh on the back of a lot of work rather than running and not doing too much between runs. He might be getting like that now.
“We were always going to go fresh for the Gold Cup after Kempton and now we’ve got five weeks to get him back to his best.”
