Earlier this year the great and the good of British racing launched Racing For Change, their latest vessel to carry the sport through the choppy seas of mass-public indifference to the promised land of packed grandstands. 

Since then any number of bright ideas have been put forward to make racing more appealing but few will have had anywhere near as much impact as the six and a half minutes at Newbury on Saturday in which a horse galloped and jumped his rivals into submission and a crowd into raptures.

If the marketeers could bottle the essence of Denman’s victory in the Hennessy Gold Cup their job would be three-parts done. It was the most eloquent and compelling statement of what this sport is at its best. So much for dumb animals.  

It was also a performance that stands scrutiny in recent history of weight-carrying performances in handicaps in this country. Denman was winning off a rating of 174 (8lbs lower than his career best), which is 2lbs behind that achieved by Well Chief when he won the Victor Chandler Chase in 2007.  

However, that still leaves Denman a little behind Desert Orchid’s 1990 Racing Post Chase win from a mark of 185. In 53 years only two horses had won the Hennessy twice – Mandarin (1957 and ’61) and Arkle (1964 and ’65) and, like Arkle, Denman’s follow-up to his victory of 2007 came as he dragged topweight around for a second time. However, the main burden was last season’s health worries, when a fibrillating heart problem had trainer Paul Nicholls wondering whether he could ever get the horse back to his best.

Nicholls is a man who is not afraid to show his emotions and on Saturday he was nearly in tears as he said: “He was so ill last year and to come back like that. He was just awesome today – that is one of those great moments that I’ll never forget. For what he’s been through, to come back – what a Gold Cup we’re going to be in for this year. Ruby’s going to have a headache now isn’t he?”

 That was a reference to a third meeting between Denman and stable companion Kauto Star in the totesport Cheltenham Gold Cup next March.

The score stands at 1-1, with Ruby Walsh staying loyal to Kauto Star each time, but thoughts of a rematch were not getting much room in Walsh’s after the Hennessy. “It’s a great day for racing and they’re two wonderful horses to keep racing on the right pages for the right reasons. And it’s great to be able to ride the two of them.”

If the biggest certainty in racing is that a Kauto Star-Denman clash in the Gold Cup will be a sell-out, the next was that Tony McCoy would be a rank outsider to make it on to the short list for the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year award, which is due to be announced tonight.

Even those who marvel at the exploits of a jockey who breaks records with the same regularity with which most people break promises have to remind themselves that while he makes the mesmerising look commonplace it is anything but and that when he finally retires those records may take years to be eclipsed.

For him every race matters which is why it was appropriate that he rode his 3,000th winner on a foul February afternoon on a deeply ordinary card at Plumpton.  He accepts awards with the good grace of a man who sees his position as champion jockey as a role that carries responsibility, but he will lose precious little sleep over missing out on Auntie’s jamboree.

He’d just be dreaming that he had the choice between Kauto Star and Denman.

Paul Wheeler