Having made history last season Kauto Star heads the entries for this year’s totesport Cheltenham Gold Cup, attempting to join those whose names resonate through the sport.

After becoming the first horse to regain chasing’s blue riband last season, Kauto Star will attempt to emulate Cottage Rake, Arkle and Best Mate with a third victory in the Grade One race, leaving only five-time winner Golden Miller in his sights.

The total of 27 horses which have been entered for the race is the smallest number in recent times but compares favourably with the level of entries in 1964, 1965 and 1966 – 14, 13 and 18 – when Arkle ruled the Cotswolds.

Having saddled the first three home in 2008, Kauto Star’s trainer, Paul Nicholls, has a total of six entries with Denman, the winner of that 2008 renewal, joined by What A Friend – part-owned by Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson and winner of the Grade One Lexus Chase at Leopardstown last month – My Will, 2007 Ryanair Chase winner Taranis and Tricky Trickster, who won the National Hunt Chase at least season’s Festival when trained by Nigel Twiston-Davies.

This numerically strong hand for the champion trainer, bidding to become the first trainer to win four successive Gold Cups since Basil Briscoe (1932-35), may well be whittled down but it is hard to look beyond Kauto Star and Denman as they are prepared for a third Gold Cup meeting, with the score standing at 1-1.

Imperial Commander appeals most as one for the places but one bookmaker would be breaking into a cold sweat if Carruthers jumped the last clear. Carruthers was bred by Lord Oaksey, the celebrated former amateur rider, journalist and broadcaster and founder trustee of the Injured Jockeys’ Fund, and is very much a family horse. Trained by Oaksey’s son-in-law, Mark Bradstock, his dam, Plaid Maid, was bought by Bradstock and his wife, Sarah, for 5000gns in 1995. Oaksey has a bet of £10, at odds of 1000-1, that Carruthers would one day win a Gold Cup – with any winnings going to his beloved IJF.

Bradstock, who has saddled Carruthers to win six of 12 starts, is considering letting his stable star chaser take his chance. The seven-year-old finished fourth in the RSA Chase at The Festival in 2009 and was a comfortable winner on his latest start at Newbury last month. Bradstock was realistic when he said: “There’s obviously Kauto Star and Denman, who are both fairly exceptional but, below that, it’d be nice to think that we’d be in with a shout of making the frame.
“I was over the moon with his run at Newbury because it cemented what he did in his novice season. The time was quicker than the Long Walk Hurdle on the same card so, while they didn’t appear to be going very fast, they must have been going a fair lick.

“He’s come out of that race incredibly well but we’ve been held up by the weather and I would like to get another run into him before making any final decision regarding Cheltenham. We could go for the AON Chase at Newbury, where he would have to take on Denman, so the alternative could be the Letheby & Christopher Chase at Cheltenham on Festival Trials day.

“He is still a baby and he probably lacks a bit of experience at the moment but he is improving all of the time and we have plenty to look forward to with him. It would be fun to go for the Gold Cup and it would certainly be no disgrace to finish behind the likes of Kauto Star and Denman.”

A victory for Carruthers would rank as Oaksey’s favourite Cheltenham moment, along with his triumph aboard Bullock’s Horn in the 1973 Foxhunters’ Chase, and help expunge his ride on the inauguration of the New Course in 1964 – he was fined £25 after he went the wrong way when clear aboard Pioneer Spirit in an amateur riders’ chase.

Paul Wheeler