Kauto curries Royal favour
Saturday November 01 2008
The much-vaunted Kauto Star competes for the first time outside his native France, or England, when attempting to justify odds-on favouritism in the JNwine.com Champion Chase this afternoon at Down Royal.
A year ago the formidable Paul Nicholls and Ruby Walsh partnership captured the biggest race run in Northern Ireland with Taranis, and they're back for more as Kauto Star resumes after a 212-day break.
At this juncture last season Walsh's mount was rated the best chaser in training in these islands and seemingly all set to successfully defend the Gold Cup when the big day arrived at Cheltenham.
Famously outjumped and outstayed by Denman there on an easy surface, the French import also met with defeat when another Irish-bred, Our Vic, turned on the style at Aintree where his victim looked a tired horse.
Nonetheless, there's likely to be precious few serious punters willing to oppose the Nicholls eight-year-old today as the British champion trainer's team is in rude health and mopping up the better prizes.
Fellow English-based hopefuls The Listener, which surprisingly got rid of Daryl Jacob at the third fence here 12 months ago, and Turpin Green are resuming off even longer absences from the track and will make the Gowran Park winner Knight Legend work to take a share of the place money.
Despite the soft ground favouring regular Irish raider The Listener, it does seem futile to oppose hotpot Kauto Star as this is not a particularly stiff course and the three miles is well within his compass.
It will be equally interesting to learn how the other Nicholls-Walsh contender, Noland, fares when stepping up in trip on his comeback in the following Killultagh Properties Chase against a quartet of smart home defenders.
Tom Taaffe's Cheltenham scorer Finger Onthe Pulse, which followed up at Limerick recently, rather than Sky's The Limit or Scotsirish, can be relied upon to give the Nicholls candidate a proper test.
The William Ewart Properties Handicap Hurdle is the third interesting affair on the card and Jessica Harrington's progressive top weigh Quartino may find his hat-trick ambitions foiled by the versatile Arc Bleu.
- Damien McElroy
