Final salute to ‘horse of a lifetime’ Kauto?
It was an ovation that said more about the legendary 12-year-old than all his victories combined and one that echoed the reception received two years ago when he crashed out at Prestbury Park but rose to his feet unscathed.
Even in defeat, he has never lost our affections.
The initial reaction when Ruby Walsh pulled him up this time was a collective groan from punters who, as revealed by his shrinking odds prior to the off, had been more than willing to buy into the romance of one more epic performance on the greatest of stages.
Affection soon swamped disappointment.
Within a split second, the first spectator had begun to applaud and the ripple of smacking hands soon spread throughout the racecourse as eyes drifted away from the continuing action and towards the greatest star of them all.
The lead-in to this year’s festival had been dominated by updates from Ditcheat.
One paper ran with a daily Kautometer to judge his well-being after that schooling fall but trainer Paul Nicholls said afterwards that they had just ran out of time.
It was 3.23pm when Walsh called off the impossible dream.
By then, AP McCoy had already leaned across to his pal and said ‘if I was you I’d pull him up’.
Ruby didn’t have to be told. There was nothing else for it.
One minute he was in the midst of the field, the next he was shooting back to the rear.
It was that quick.
“Do you know what, I knew he wasn’t going well,” said McCoy.
“I knew Ruby was going to pull him up because he is too valuable a horse for something to go wrong with him. He wasn’t travelling from such an early stage. I felt it in my guts and I knew he was going to do the right thing because he wasn’t going to win the Gold Cup.
“You’ve got to look after your horse. Any horse is too valuable to take risks with but a horse like Kauto Star is an amazing horse and none of us in this game would like anything to happen to that horse. They have earned their right to be minded.”
Two Gold Cups, five King Georges, three Betfair Chases and two Tingle Creeks: this was a story that didn’t need a Hollywood ending, much as we would have loved to see one, and who better than Walsh to sum it all up?
“He’s been the horse of a lifetime. A wonderful horse. He owes nobody anything. Today was Synchronised’s day. I’m delighted for AP. I wish it was me but it’s not. He was the best horse I ever rode. He’d be my favourite.”
The cliché du jour is that ‘we will never see his like again’ but there were those of us who said much the same 12 months ago when he was left behind by Long Run and Denman going up the hill, so it would be premature to say this is the final farewell.
Whatever happens, he will not race again this season.
Owner Clive Smith intimated he is 90% likely to retire but then Walsh thought the end had been reached last May when he had to pull him up at Punchestown.
As for Nicholls, his immediate reaction was simply one of relief. “He is 100% okay but something is obviously niggling him. We tried to get everything right but, no matter what you do, it is not until the pressure of a race that you know. We wouldn’t have run him unless he had done all the tests.
“That is why we took him to Wincanton and schooled him and made sure he was right but you just can’t replicate the pressures of a race. Ruby has done exactly the right thing. He wasn’t going as he can and he pulled him up.”
Who knows, that win at Haydock last November and the fifth King George VI at Kempton on St Stephen’s Day may yet tempt the connections to dress Kauto Star in his Sunday best one more time, but hopefully not.
Where better to depart the stage for the last time than here?
