[Corbiere]

All excellent stuff and well reasoned from all posters regarding the relative chances of the horses

I think we are all agreed there are two pricicpal factors at work here:

- The ground - soft will favour Denman's strength; good will favour KS's tactical speed

- The pace - much will depend on the jockey riding Denman, for reasons perfectly expressed by Spook:
" By the very nature of the encounter, a horse can dictate a fast pace, but you can't dictate a slower one, if something else wants to go quicker. In other words, its much easier for Denman to set the race up to suit his strengths, then it would be Kauto. "

My guess is that although Denman is an armchair ride they will prefer to stick with a jockey who has won on him so often, ie Sam Thomas (and I'm sure Tom George would let him off to ride the horse even if he had one good enough to run). The fact he rode WAF on Saturday tells me that. The interesting thing would be if the gorund is slow and Ruby decides to opt for Denman... then you would need a jock with real stickability for Kauto, and I doubt Sam would be the right man.

Having watched KS race so many times and having talked now to a few who know him, I'm becoming convinced Kauto tends to make jumping errors at the business end not because he's a poor jumper but because he starts getting distracted by the crowd, and that may cost him.

He's a real 'people person' and always interested in and taking in what's going on around him. I think the noise and crowds at the end of a race distract him - and you can see and hear them from the second last at Cheltenham.

So you would need a jockey who knows him and his quirks.

Denman on the other hand isn't interested in anything except his race - he doesn't look right or left, just concentrates on his fencing. Even after the race on Saturday, with all those hordes in the WE, he didn't lift his head to look at them all, not even when being parading round to applause and cheers. WAF got distracted both by Denman and the yelling jumping crowds on Saturday - Denman didn't get distracted by anything, He was aware each time another came near him and pulled out a bit - but never looked round once! Amazing stuff.

I'm sure Barber would never consent to AP riding Denman - AP left them in lurch many years ago: I can't remember which horse now, but it was a big race and AP got off at the last minute to ride one of Pipe's - and got the 'Pipe job' shortly after. Barber said he'd never ride one of theirs again, and I don't think he has, although AP does now get the odd very rare ride for the yard... It's all in Nicholls book.

My guess is Ruby will stay loyal to Kauto who is not the easiest of rides, and Sam will get the Denman ride again, with Christian riding whichever other horse they put in (poss as pacemaker! - though they will try to avoid the big Winners' Enc row of last year LOL).

There is no substitute for knowing a horse, in a big race like that.