Racing: King George can crown Best Mate as a champion

Gold Cup winner should add lustre to his reputation by adding Kempton's showpiece to his collection

It may be a day early, but those who have travelled from far away in the orient (well the Sky News base in Osterley, west London, at least) will gather at the stable of a chosen one this morning.

You know you have made it as a racehorse when the national television cameras come to visit and that is the honour which will be bestowed on Best Mate at his lodgings at Henrietta Knight's West Lockinge Farm in Oxfordshire.

It will be very much business as usual at the yard tomorrow. Knight and her husband, Terry Biddlecombe, will be in and out of their front door like cuckoos as they try to make sure Best Mate and the rest of their runners on Boxing Day are primed to give virtuoso displays. They trust the only turkey this Yuletide will be the steaming fowl on their table at lunchtime.

It could be a definitive day for Best Mate in the King George VI Chase at Kempton. We already know that, aged just seven, he is a very good horse, but if he can add the King George gong to a breast pocket that already bears a Cheltenham Gold Cup medal it will be established that he is an outstanding one too. To combat the twin disciplines of Kempton and Prestbury Park and the two top staying chases of the season is a gift given to the very few.

It is an achievement which could already have been pinned on Best Mate. He was beaten just three-quarters of a length in the King George 12 months ago, essentially outspeeded over the last two fences by one of Thursday's opponents, Florida Pearl. If there was any blame to be apportioned for that defeat it went to an unusual recipient.

When you ask his trainer what went wrong, she gives a four-word response you seldom ever hear in a negative sense in National Hunt racing. "It was Tony McCoy," she says. "He admits it himself. That he didn't know the horse and didn't know he would stay three miles.

"He thought he would just pick up Florida Pearl in the closing stages of the race, but, basically, all this horse does is stay. The other horse got first run.

"It's very difficult because we're not riding the horses. But those weren't the stable orders. He knows exactly what the form is now and he knows exactly what the criticisms were last year."

McCoy has never won a King George, but then he has never ridden a horse in it which is likely to go off at close to even money. Best Mate's odds, though, are no indication of his actual prospects according to his trainer.

"I think Best Mate's price is quite ridiculous," Knight says. "I have the utmost respect for quite a few of the other horses and it's certainly not going to be a walkover. It is a much more open race than most people are trying to make out.

"In itself, the soft ground will not be a worry for Best Mate, but it might convenience some of the others. It will suit Bacchanal and probably Native Upmanship."

Bacchanal has six lengths to make up on Best Mate from last year. He subsequently ran dreadfully in the Gold Cup, although his successful reappearance over hurdles at Newbury last month proved there there was still plenty of steam in the furnace.

A notable feature of Bacchanal is his disturbing tendency to negotiate fences by jumping to the right. That will not count so badly at right-handed Sunbury and is one reason why Mick Fitzgerald has chosen the eight-year-old in preference to his Seven Barrows stablemate Marlborough.

"They are both in good form," Nicky Henderson, the trainer, reported yesterday. "The more rain the better for Bacchanal, but the less rain the better for Marlborough.

"Bacchanal ran a very good prep race at Newbury and he jumped very well over hurdles. He has jumped beautifully back over fences since and is in good form."

Native Upmanship, too, is capable of smashing form, witness his victory earlier this month over a talented field at Punchestown. Reliability, however, is not his most potent weapon and the flatlands of Kempton are unlikely to bring out his full potential.

This, though, is perfect territory for Florida Pearl, whose comeback at Down Royal was a flop, albeit a flop he has affected before and returned to a high level over the Irish Sea.

They will be wise to Florida Pearl this time, though, and he will not be allowed a head start when the field hits the Boxing Day roar on the turn into Kempton's straight. Tony McCoy and Best Mate are likely to be within smelling distance as the contest is determined between the final two obstacles.

The heart, the head and the form book say that Best Mate (2.20) should stamp himself first on the race and then in the history books. Any other eventuality would be rather deflating. Racing needs its saviours.