'Such was the fanfare, it seemed as if Kauto Star himself was to be walked on stage'.

Byline: Tony Smurthwaite

IT MAY be rare but it made sublime sense in the ballroom of the Jumeirah Carlton Hotel in London's Knightsbridge yesterday because the horse was Kauto Star. The brilliant, reformed, redeemed, salvational chaser.

After all, he is the only horse to regain the Cheltenham Gold Cup. Not only that but he is, in the words of his owner Clive Smith, "everybody's horse".

As much was true from the ovation when Kauto Star regained a second title, as the BHA's Horse of the Year, during the tenth Anglo-Irish Jump Racing Awards ceremony. For a moment, such was the fanfare, it seemed as if Kauto Star himself was to be walked on stage but amid booming echoes of Elvis Costello's rousing double-entendre anthem Pump It Up (look it up on Wikipedia) the audience was force-fed the message: here was a horse that had raised the profile of British and Irish jump racing.

Kauto Star's official rating of 186, gained in beating Denman, the late Exotic Dancer and Neptune Collonges at Cheltenham in March, ensured the crown of Horse of the Year. At the same time, it was loaded with the duality of all handicapping pronouncements. On one hand it was only the mark Master Minded scored in topping last season's ratings, on the other it became the best Gold Cup achievement since, well, Arkle.

After David Bowie's Starman had belted out for Kauto Star's announcement as divisional champion 3m+ chaser, the show was in danger of becoming like attempts to cover the expenses scandal; a strain to better the previous superlative.

"It's embarrassing, really, isn't it?" said Smith. "I just feel so lucky." As Smith rightly basked, you could sense trainer Paul Nicholls merely chewing over the next problem. "In this game you learn about them every day," he said, "you have to keep changing routines and learning about them." The insight verged on unnerving for Nicholls' sinking opponents, many of whom were present. Minutes before winning the first division of the bumper at Newton Abbot with an evens favourite, Nicholls issued this sobering update on his latest Horse of the Year. "If you saw him out in the field this morning scrapping with Denman you'd think he was a six-year-old." Andy Stewart, collecting the trophy as owner of Big Buck's, champion 2m4f+ hurdler, could barely resist the rebranding issue.

Asked to compare jumps and Flat, he said: "Jump racing is a completely different category, the Manchester United compared to the relegated Southampton which is Flat racing.

There is no pomposity, there are class people running these tracks unlike those [on the Flat] who really, absolutely, have got no clue." Analyse that. Nicholls himself had earlier suggested there was little need for "Bill and Ben and the flowerpot men", when the horses "can promote themselves".

Yet the elephant in the room, as always, was the real world. Stepping outside into Cadogan Square brought a waft of cool air on a summer's afternoon. Six people, selected at random, were asked if they had heard of the racehorse Kauto Star.

The answer was at first depressing, but laced with a flicker of hope.

The black-cab driver had "never been in a betting shop in my life", the research student, corrected from her view that the question was, "Have you heard of this restaurant?", answered in the negative, as did the mother with pushchair, as did the quintessential 'boating Brian' figure with loud voice, loud checks and sweater draped round neck, as did the young housekeeper.

The single "yes" came from an 11-year-old schoolgirl, who rides ponies at the weekend. Analyse that..