The small, angry clique of animal rights extremists that argues for racing to be banned also likes to claim that no one in the sport really cares about the horses. For them, it is just a means to an end, an excuse for boozing and betting with the horses as little more than extras, discarded and forgotten once their work is done.
It is a lie that was nailed absolutely on Tuesday morning, as word spread across social media and the web that Kauto Star had been put down on Monday afternoon after suffering a serious injury in a fall in his paddock. Far from being forgotten in the three years since his final start in the 2013 Cheltenham Gold Cup, the reaction showed Kauto Star was still National Hunt racing’s biggest star. He retained the ability to connect with people and not just in jumping’s heartland in Britain and Ireland, but also around the world. On Tuesday there were tweets and posts to show that people still connected through him.
Kauto Star was not an unbeaten champion like Frankel on the Flat. Far from it. He was beaten almost as many times as he finished in front, though 16 Grade One chase victories are an immense testament to Kauto Star’s talent and durability, and also the skill with which Paul Nicholls, his trainer, plotted his racing career.
There was also a brief spell when Kauto Star was not even the best horse in the Nicholls stable, according to the official handicapper at least. Master Minded, an exceptional winner of the Queen Mother Champion Chase, edged ahead in the official ratings in the spring of 2008.
But Kauto Star did not burn brightly and then sputter out. Instead, he produced enduringly memorable performances from the start of his British racing career in 2004 until very close to its end nearly a decade later. As a result, Kauto Star etched himself into the affections of National Hunt fans more firmly than any chaser since Desert Orchid, and did so at a time when jumping as a whole was booming. In a sense, he was the first – and greatest – star of National Hunt’s modern era.
Kauto Star’s first outstanding performance was a defeat, on only his second start in Britain. Sent off at 2-11 to beat two mismatched rivals, Kauto Star was a distance clear on the run to the second-last, but clipped the top of the obstacle and came down. Incredibly, Ruby Walsh was able to remount and then get to within a short-head of the winner having jumped the last with about 10 lengths to find.
Remounting has since been banned and an injury sustained during that huge effort kept Kauto Star off the track for 10 months. But his first Grade One victory, in the 2005 Tingle Creek Chase, was not long delayed, and while a fall when favourite for the Queen Mother Champion Chase was another disappointment, it was a precursor to Kauto Star’s finest campaign. He went to the track six times in the 2006-07 season, first in a handicap off a mark of 167 and then in five consecutive Graded events, four at the highest Grade One level. He won the lot, and claimed a million-pound bonus for Clive Smith, his owner, with his first victory in the Cheltenham Gold Cup in March 2007.
Twelve months later, Kauto Star was blown away by the raw power of his stablemate Denman. He had found the worthy rival that every champion needs to establish a legend’s status, and in 2009, he reversed the form, becoming the first horse ever to reclaim the Gold Cup.
It was, without doubt, one of his crowning achievements, but with Kauto Star, it was never just about Cheltenham. Instead, there was an “anytime, anywhere” feeling about the greatest peaks of his career, with the most memorable of all arriving at three very different tracks in different corners of the country, and at very different stages of the season. There were five victories in the King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day, and the fourth and fifth – Kauto Star’s final success on his penultimate start, just a few days before his 12th birthday – were arguably the most impressive of all. Four wins in the Betfair Chase at Haydock in November too, and again, the last of these left the most indelible memory.
Kauto Star had been off the track for six months following a poor run at Punchestown in May, such a sluggish performance that many were surprised to see him return to a track at all. He was the 6-1 co-third favourite behind Long Run, five years his junior, who had beaten him into third place in the Gold Cup earlier in the year. In a change to normal tactics, Kauto Star made all the running and when his rivals tried to run him down in the straight, he batted away every challenge. Most of the spectators in a packed crowd had backed one of his opponents but who gave that a second thought amid the euphoria that followed? Once again, and at the moment when decline finally seemed inevitable and irreversible, National Hunt racing was united in its admiration for Kauto Star and a moment of transcendent brilliance.
Across the sport, there are countless thousands of fans who, when asked to recall their most memorable day on a racecourse, will immediately name an afternoon when Kauto Star produced one of his defining performances. For many in racing, he was and will remain the best steeplechaser we have seen, which is why, amid all the grim and distressing stories competing for attention on Tuesday morning, the news of his death prompted both sadness and reflection. Every horse matters to someone but horses like Kauto Star keep the collective passion alive.
