OPINION:LATER TODAY we could all be celebrating a fairytale moment as the great chaser Kauto Star triumphs at Cheltenham, taking his third Gold Cup. But chances are we will instead be lamenting why a veteran race horse, at 12 years of age, was being asked to do the impossible and contest the 5,331 metre course and its 22 fences for the sixth time.
Already the highest earner in National Hunt racing with winnings in excess of £2.4 million, the iconic French-bred gelding is the only horse to have regained the Gold Cup, winning in 2007 and banishing memories of being left in the slipstream of the mighty Denman in 2008, stormed to victory the following year to confirm that he is indeed King Kauto. He fell in 2010 four from home and last year was third behind another French-bred, Long Run, who at six, had not even been foaled when Kauto Star won his first race.
Cheltenham is tough: 40 horses had died there since 2007, five have died so far this week. It is true that National Hunt horses tend to have longer careers than their flat racing counterparts, but this apparent longevity is due to the fact that they mature later as jumping is a skill that needs to be acquired, while basic flat speed is a given. The big money is on the flat and a successful flat racer has usually gone to stud by the age of three or four. Kauto Star as a gelding has no breeding option. Had he been a mare he may well have been retired in a bid to replicate whatever it is that makes him so good, so brave, so consistent and so tenacious.
Kauto Star alive
and well in a much deserved retirement can only improve racing’s ambivalent image; a magnificent-looking athlete he could do immense good not only for his sport – well why not admit it, the insatiable industry he has enhanced – but also charities would benefit from guest appearances, he would draw crowds eager to see him in the flesh and, equally importantly, consider what he could do for horse welfare and racehorse rehabilitation.
Put bluntly, he is too old to race today, and he is now vulnerable. Had his fall a few weeks ago been slightly more serious, Kauto Star would be safely retired as is his mighty rival and stable mate Denman following a tendon injury in December. Arkle had won his three Gold Cups by the age of nine; so had the wonderful Best Mate. Have we forgotten what happened to him? A burst blood vessel ended Best Mate’s career, but after 10 months he was returned to racing in November 2005 and suffered a fatal heart attack at Exeter, photographs of his death appearing on some front pages. He was 10, two years younger than Kauto Star.
Racing fans recall Dawn Run, who was brought to France a couple of months after her 1986 Gold Cup, one of only four mares to win it, and raced against advice at the end of a long season. She fell and broke her neck five hurdles from home – dead at eight years of age. One of the most poignant images in racing history is the despairing expression on the face of Vincent O’Brien, trainer of triple Cheltenham Gold Cup victor Cottage Rake (between 1948 and1950), as his famous and notoriously temperamental charge Nijinsky was overwhelmed when being asked to race when he obviously needed a rest.
But even-tempered Kauto Star is not Nijinsky; if asked Kauto will run his heart out. In another era Golden Miller won the Gold Cup five times between 1932 and 1936, and the 1934 Grand National. He died in retirement aged 30 in 1957, the year Arkle was foaled. Red Rum won three of his five Grand Nationals, finishing second twice. Red Rum, frequently paraded for various good causes, also lived to 30, while 1989 Gold Cup victor Desert Orchid, showman extraordinaire and charity campaigner, died in his sleep aged 27.
Kauto Star, foaled in 2000, is a 21st-century superstar, not a commodity, and deserves a long retirement. He should be paraded with honour today, not raced. It would be nice to think that if he were Irish-bred and/or owned that the Irish people would be calling for his retirement, now, today, before the race.
If misfortune strikes Kauto Star this afternoon, National Hunt racing, a much criticised high-risk sport, will be the biggest loser.