King George VI Chase results: Cue Card wins dramatic Boxing Day battle with Vautour

If it’s possible for a horse to have charisma, then Cue Card has it in spades

Cue Card (right) battles with Vautour (left) in the home stretch of the King George VI Chase (Getty Images)

If at first you don’t succeed … Finally, at the fourth attempt, Cue Card won the King George VI Chase at Kempton, wearing down the gallant Vautour in the dying strides in a tingling finish to one of the best ever renewals of this famous winter showpiece.

And so the dream of a £1 million bonus for winning the Lancashire Chase-King George-Cheltenham Gold Cup treble is still on for owner Mrs Jean Bishop and trainer Colin Tizzard, but this horse has been realising dreams and confounding critics all his career, ever since bounding clear at 40-1 in the Cheltenham Festival Bumper back in 2010.

If it’s possible for a horse to have charisma, then Cue Card has it in spades, possessing attributes that have long endeared him to the racing public: fearless jumping, the endurance to give of his best year after year, and the character to bounce back when it goes wrong.

But even so, he needed extra help to turn three King George defeats into a glorious triumph and that help has come from the vet, who freed a trapped epiglottis at the start of this campaign, so allowing Cue Card to save vital breaths for the finish.

The old Cue Card wouldn’t have kept going to nab Vautour on the line, even though the leader’s stamina was running out. The new Cue Card, though not too far away from his last gasp either, just made it.

Paddy Brennan salutes the Kempton crowd after winning the King George VI Chase on Cue Card (Getty Images)

Paddy Brennan, three out of three since taking over as Cue Card’s regular rider, admitted that his partner had nothing to spare. “I’m not going to lie and say there was loads. He was at the bottom of the tank,” he said, important words when considering Cue Card’s chances of staying on up the hill in the Gold Cup.

But for now Bennan was just savouring the moment: “I have just ridden one of the best horses in my career to beat one of the best jockeys [Ruby Walsh] I have ridden against and I’m a proud man today.”

The stewards were unimpressed with Brennan’s use of the whip, however, banning him for 11 days and fining him £4,200. Walsh also picked up a two-day ban.

Cue Card will now, almost alone as a serious contender it seems, fly the English flag in the Gold Cup, but that will not phase connections now shooting for the moon. “He’s been brilliant for five or six seasons, but nowadays he’s a completely different horse,” said Tizzard, keener than ever to take them all on.

Whether Vautour lines up against him at Prestbury Park or drops back to two and a half miles for the Ryanair Chase remains to be seen, but there will be other serious Irish challenges to Cue Card, not least yesterday’s favourite, Don Cossack, who might have spoiled the home celebrations had he not fallen at the second last when in with a shout. Instead, Al Ferof took the minor placing for the third year in a row.

As if the King George weren’t enough of a meal on its own, there had already been so much to digest at racing’s winter feast. We rather expected Faugheen’s tasty hors d’oeuvre in the Christmas Hurdle, but earlier a delicious starter had been served up by Lizzie Kelly, left, who became the first woman ever to win a Grade One jumps race when partnering Tea For Two to an impressive victory in the Kauto Star Novices’ Chase.

Faugheen was quite simply devastating, a different animal from the one surprisingly beaten by stablemate Nichols Canyon on his seasonal return at Punchestown last month and far too classy for The New One, who, though thrashed seven lengths, has re-emerged as England’s best hope of at least making the reigning Champion Hurdler break sweat at Cheltenham in March.

“Yes, that was old Faugheen,” said a somewhat relieved Ruby Walsh. “I caught hold of him going to the second last, he pinged it and then he quickened really, really well.”