Twiston Shout
When Kauto Star almost unseated Ruby Walsh at the eighth fence, Denman’s owner knew that the duel for which the sporting world had waited so long was not going to materialise.
What had been flagged as a two-horse race had seemingly become a one-horse race. Barber was still thinking along those lines when his ten-year old was about to turn for home. Then his heart sank.
“At the top of the hill I thought, ‘we’ve got a right good chance’ but then I saw something out of the corner of my eye and thought ‘we’ve no chance’. It was the eventual winner.”
When Paddy Brennan crested the finishing line on Imperial Commander, he turned towards the drenched grandstands and put his fingers to his lips – a simple but effective admonishment of a world that had overlooked their claims.
“He’s special and he doesn’t need to improve on this,” said the Galway man. “I just went by the line and put the quiet sign up because he was probably a little bit forgotten coming into the race. What Kauto Star and Denman do for horse racing is superb but this lad is right here now.”
His trainer, Nigel Twiston Davies, was even more forthright about the months of mushrooming hullabaloo that saw Denman and Kauto Star T-shirts, scarves and banners adorn Prestbury Park all week.
“It has been very difficult sitting with the third favourite, especially with all of that about Kauto Star and Denman. We always knew that we were going to bloody win, or at least we hoped that we would.
“We are at home,” said the Cheltenham-based trainer, “the pub will go mad this evening. We are where we belong. I thought that it was all our Christmases coming together. This is the Olympics of jump racing and we have won it.”
If Kauto Star’s premature demise at the fourth last was disappointing, the same couldn’t be said of his stablemate who, with Tony McCoy on board, chased Imperial Commander the whole way home.
“Denman ran a super race,” said Brennan. “I thought Tony gave him a fabulous ride. He was always in top gear and he kept him in the race. You never know with the last two furlongs but he just proved today that he is as good a horse as we have seen for a while.”
For Brennan, who went on to claim another victory on board Pigeon Island in the last race of the Festival, it was deliverance after what had been up to that point a bitterly frustrating week in the Cotswolds.
“Five or six winners at Cheltenham wouldn’t make up for winning the Gold Cup,” he said. “It’s the best feeling of my life. It was just a superb run by a superb horse and it all came good today.
“It hasn’t really sunk in yet. It will probably sink in a bit later. To be put up there with some of the great jockeys that have won the Gold Cup is a great honour. It’s a tremendous feeling.
“When you are a child growing up and looking at the very best jockeys riding – Richard Dunwoody, Tony McCoy – you never dream of this. It’s absolutely unbelievable. This will never be repeated.”
McCoy himself had no complaints. Denman, whom Barber called a “tank” of a horse, had run his heart out and didn’t do a whole lot wrong. He was, AP admitted, simply beaten by a better horse on the day.
“Second is better than third and better than Ruby ended up with. It is a shame he got beat. When you go out you think that Kauto Star is the only horse that will beat you so when something else does it is disappointing.”
Disappointed as McCoy was, it probably didn’t come close to matching that of his trainer Paul Nicholls who seemed guaranteed of victory one way or the other with two such once-in-a-lifetime animals in his yard.
Nicholls himself was nowhere to be seen in the aftermath so it fell on Walsh to offer some perspective on what was, after all, still just a race and one which delivered more bruised egos than bones.
“You make mistakes, you pay the price. It is not as simple as turning up and collecting the prize money. Kauto Star was up after the fall before I was. He was going by me and I caught him.
“It is always a relief when a horse like him gets up and is okay. There is not a bother on him. It would have been the worst day if he wasn’t alright. He’s alright, I’m alright. There will be another day.
“It is disappointing but it isn’t the end of the world.”
