Kauto Star, Kauto Star, Kauto Star

What a week. What a great Cheltenham Festival. And what a Gold Cup, what a win by Kauto Star. Wonderful. It's only four days since I last blogged, but Tuesday seems like a year ago now after all the sport that has thrilled us since then. Sublimity? Was it really only four days ago that he won the Champion Hurdle? We've had so much excitement since then. Voy Por Ustedes making the obvious, but in reality very difficult, transition from Arkle winner to Queen Mother winner; Well Chief and Ashley Brook falling (both unharmed, thank God). Inglis Drever, a true hero. And Mighty Man and Blazing Bailey both ran so well behind him. The Black Jack Ketchum debacle - did he even attempt to jump the hurdle? Denman, surely the horse to be Kauto Star's main rival next year.

Katchit, what a wonderful little professional. Wichita Lineman, so talented, and a win for Tony McCoy at last. Kauto Star, of course, and his seemingly inevitable last fence blunder. And full credit to Exotic Dancer too, not just for a great run yesterday, but for a winter of sustained excellence by this grand horse. Donald McCain and Richard Newland having first-season Festival wins, and David Pipe with wonderful little Gaspara. His dad had been overjoyed when she and McCoy had won the Imperial Cup three days previously, but seemed even more ecstatic this time - superb! And that's despite poor Little Brick's fatal fall an hour previously, which was so sad. Three wins for Jonjo and for Alan King, and four for Paul Nicholls. Robert Thornton's leading jockey award - thoroughly well deserved. Philip Carberry - two wins from three rides. And what about Kawagino - fifth in the Champion Hurdle and fourth in the County Hurdle three days later. That's excellent. Two wins for Ferdy Murphy, who has some good runs at the Festival every year, aided by very polished rides from Davy Russell and Graham Lee. My Way De Solzen: 3-mile World Hurdle last year, 2-mile Arkle Chase this. Idole First: Coral Cup two years ago, Mildmay Of Flete / Racing Post Plate this year. And Palarshan: second in the Racing Post Plate two years after being pulled up in the same race, and not racing at all in the 728 days in between. Amazing. And the anti-hero, the Bumper being won by a Fasliyev who'd gone through the Breeze-up! So that's the list of heroes from this perspective. Who and what have I missed out?

Here things have run reasonably smoothly. The weather's been great, although that supposedly really is about to change now. Ben and Anis Etoile (right, taking her first tentative steps on the heath with Martha) have fitted back into the routine very smoothly. Jill (top picture) and Belle Annie (below, with David) are starting to do a little bit of faster work, and doing it nicely - Emma took her camera out to Railway Land yesterday as we went up there, and you'd swear the photos of Jill are of Jack. And Belle Annie looked very professional. Mattie's galloping nicely, with excellent lessons from Brief Goodbye, so we're looking forward to his debut. Lady Suffragette seems fine after her race and has been accompanying Imperial Decree (Diktat) in her canters, so we can look forward to her second hurdles run now. We've got our jockey already - Tom Greenway very conscientiously called a couple of days after Plumpton to ask after her and, when I rather embarrassedly told him he wouldn't be eligible for her next race, he recommended Caroline Hurley to stand in. She was actually riding in the ladies' race at Huntingdon that day, but I didn't get much chance to assess her because her mount refused to race. (That wasn't her fault, because he'd done the same the previous time). She did well to get him over the first hurdle eventually, but that was that.

Elsewhere we've had our antipodean filly Somewhere Safer run fourth today, her first run since June and only her third ever. Michael was sure that she was thriving, and that's confirmed it, so we've got plenty to look forward to. With rainy Rosehill and sunny Sandown (Vic) covered by At The Races overnight, we obviously didn't get to see that (she was running at the Gold Coast), but I was holding out a slight hope that Benalla tomorrow might be shown overnight tonight, which would have allowed us watch Spaceage Juliet (see photo gallery) very possibly salute the judge, but unfortunately Orange and Ballina are the chosen venues, so we'll have to rely on our men on the spot to fill us in on that one too.

There's no Cheltenham Festival to entertain us next week, but if we can keep things running mostly smoothly towards the spring, then we can be satisfied with that.