Denman

The all-out galloping machine aka The Tank had a heart as big as himself, but that was ultimately his downfall, finds Julian Muscat of the heroic chaser

RUBY WALSH, as voluble as he was talented, was all but speechless at the outcome. He had just ridden Kauto Star, on

whom he’d won the 2007 Gold Cup at Cheltenham, to chase home Denman in the same race 12 months later.

“At the time I was disappointed with myself for not realising Denman’s full potential,” Ruby relates 15 years later. “I’d never ridden a horse as good as Kauto Star before, and to tell you the truth, I thought it was impossible for another horse as good as Kauto to come along so soon afterward.”

Ruby could be forgiven his angst. At that point Kauto Star was the closest thing yet to Arkle, the champion against whom all other steeplechasers are measured.

He was a spritely eight-year-old when he collided with Denman at Cheltenham, by which time he had won the Tingle Creek Chase twice, the Betfair Chase twice and two renewals of the King George VI Chase in addition to the Gold Cup.

He would go on to win the King George three more times, the Betfair Chase twice more and the Gold Cup again in 2009. Yet on this day, against a horse he had never previously encountered, he was demonstrably second best.

All of which attests to Denman’s might on that memorable March afternoon. The horse known as “The Tank” had moved into the lead a full circuit from the finish, from where he galloped his rivals legless. So tired was Kauto Star, who gave vain chase throughout, that he almost lost second place to a rallying Neptune Collonges.