Kauto Star to take his chance in the Punchestown Guinness Gold Cup
Kauto Star is a confirmed runner in next week’s Guinness Gold Cup at the Punchestown festival, and Paul Nicholls’ chaser is a top-priced 6-4 to provide the Ditcheat handler with his third winner of the race in the last five years.
Connections have played down rumours suggesting that the 11-year-old will be retired after this race, and while it’s fair to say he’s not quite the horse he was a couple of years ago, he demonstrated that he is still a top-class staying chaser when 11 lengths third to Long Run in the Gold Cup at the Cheltenham Festival in March.
Having had just three starts during the 2010/11 campaign, Kauto Star heads to Ireland without too many recent miles on the clock, and must have an outstanding chance in a race in which he as at least 11lb in hand of the other nine entries at the five-day declaration stage on official figures.
Nicholls, successful in this race with Neptune Collonges in 2007 and ’08, will be hoping that Kauto can succeed where Denman failed. The latter was sent off the 11-8 favourite last year but could finish only fourth behind Planet Of Sound. I would love to see Kauto Star win on Wednesday, but I have a feeling that the Nicholls camp may again be disappointed.
Indeed, with conditions in their favour, I feel that both KEMPES and Nacarat will have too much toe for the dual Cheltenham Gold Cup hero. It’s not easy to choose between that pair for betting purposed, but Kempes is a horse I really like and I’m willing to forgive his inauspicious effort at Cheltenham where he was pulled up.
Willie Mullins didn’t appear to have any real explanation for Kempes’ poor effort in the Gold Cup, and it would seem that the eight-year-old simply didn’t perform on the day. However, there was much to like about his display in the Irish Hennessy at Leopardstown previously, a race he won cosily, jumping and travelling well throughout.
The selection landed the Grade 1 novices’ chase over C&D at this meeting last year, and will relish the sound surface on Wednesday. That remark also applies to Nacarat, who scored at Aintree’s Grand National meeting last month, but I feel that Kempes’ turn of foot will prove decisive at Punchestown.