Having flopped at Aintree and Punchestown, Denman and Kauto Star have moved over. And, while it used to be hard to do the King George VI Chase - Cheltenham Gold Cup double, Long Run has gone and done it whilst trying to smash a few fences out of the ground. Can the six-year-old - another reason that makes it quite astonishing - blunder his way round Kempton and Cheltenham again in 2011/12 for the double double?

Actually, I'm glad this has happened now and not, say, 10-12 years ago. I was a lot younger, more cynical and a worse loser when a bet went wrong. You shouldn't really be a bad loser and write stuff, it colours your judgement. Had Long Run been around then, I would have absolutely slated this horse. I wouldn't have tried to understand it - I'd have just written him, and the Gold Cup, off as 'the worst Gold Cup winner ever and the worst Gold Cup ever'. Well, we're in 2011, and his Cheltenham win was rated 178 by Timeform, and 174 by me.

By the way, those accolades-in-reverse go to one who was around in those days, the 2000 Gold Cup winner Looks Like Trouble. Wrong horse at the wrong time of my life? He ran in a manner that a Gold Cup winner never does - he came off the bridle and got reminders starting the final circuit, looking as ungenuine as anything. At least Long Run travelled more like you would expect a good Gold Cup horse to. I scribbled the following; 'midfield to rear, mistake 3rd, hit 9th, mistake 10th, in close to 12th, prominent before 13th, chased leaders when not fluent four out, close 3rd when pushed along and one reminder after three out, leading four pulled clear, stayed on and in a line of three contesting lead two out, ridden, stayed on to lead, pulled clear under pressure up the hill.'

The only thing you can pick on with Long Run is his jumping, and unless there is improvement at the fences, defending his titles might be hard.

The number one challenger from last season's novices didn't come from the RSA Chase, but having missed that Quito De La Roque did a notable double of his own, winning the staying novice chases at Aintree and Punchestown. There was a lot apparently going against him in the Mildmay at the Grand National meeting, the sharp track and good ground contributing to a mouth-watering starting price of 6/1. Overcoming the tight bends (and a couple of mistakes), he beat Sarando a neck. Punchestown, a more galloping track on the same going, proved better for him and he beat Irish National runner-up Western Charmer 14 lengths. The good ground-box is very much ticked now, and the seven-year-old could head to Cheltenham with a live chance of Gold Cup glory.

Future Gold Cup contenders are often campaigned at the minimum trip before doing what they should be doing. Best Mate was one, and Somersby is another. For reasons best known to herself Henrietta Knight has run him at up to around 2m4f but not over, despite the way he races - often tapped for pace - and his pedigree pointing to the step up. Maybe Somersby is destined not to win a Grade 1, but he's arguably yet to be given a chance to do so. Somersby is rising eight, and this is his year.

As mentioned in my piece on the 2m to 2m4f chasers, Philip Hobbs and owner Diana Whateley have two chasers, pushing top class after super novice chase campaigns, that start 2011/12 with nobody having any idea what trip they'll run over come Cheltenham. Some think Captain Chris is the two-miler because he won the Arkle and followed up over the same trip at Punchestown, and Wishfull Thinking is heading for the King George and Gold Cup. The way I see it, they should be the other way round.

The free-going tendency of Wishfull Thinking is likely to mean that he'll never be effective at 3m and might not achieve what a horse of his ability should over around 2m4f. While he should be the Queen Mother Champion Chase horse, it is Captain Chris that should take the staying route. His dam Function Dream, admittedly better known as a two-miler when she was a top-class chaser for Mary Reveley, did win at 3m, and you only have to look at the way Captain Chris finished the Arkle - and how he almost pulled the Scilly Isles at Sandown back from Medermit two starts before Cheltenham - to see that he'll get at least 2m4f and has a realistic chance of staying 3m.

The obvious disconcerting quality of Captain Chris is his jumping to the right. To be fair, my reading of his Arkle win has him going that way only once - at the last - but his fencing at right-handed Punchestown was difficult to fathom, as he brushed the inside wing twice on his way round. I'd fancy him more in the King George at Kempton than at Cheltenham at this stage.

There is another high-class three-miler in the Nicky Henderson stable. While we've known for a long time what boxes Denman and Kauto Star occupy at home, I haven't seen anything saying where Riverside Theatre is stabled in relation to Long Run. Injury prevented the Jimmy Nesbitt Partnership-owned gelding - for those who don't know, that's the star of Cold Feet and the Yellow Pages ads - from running at Cheltenham, probably in the Ryanair over 2m5f. He does have a tendency to run like Looks Like Trouble - and I noted him as struggling and off the bit early in the latest King George before he beat Kauto Star in the battle for second - but the 2000 reluctant Gold Cup hero was pulled up in the 1999 King George, so at least Riverside Theatre's done better on one score. If they get him back, he might sneak a place in the Gold Cup.

Sarando it was who represented trainer Paul Webber in the Mildmay Novices' Chase at Aintree, running with distinction in coming second to Quito De La Roque - and yet the idea at the beginning of 2010/11 was that the yard's high-class Time For Rupert, who chased up Big Buck's in a World Hurdle, would have mopped up whatever novice chases he ran in on his way to doing likewise in the RSA Chase. To be fair, he did that on his first two novice chase starts - rated 147 by me after winning at Cheltenham in December - before his below-par fifth in the RSA, off the bit halfway. Reportedly he bled, and missed the rest of the campaign. Like Somersby, Time For Rupert will turn eight on New Year's Day and shouldn't be written off until we see what he's got in store for us this season.

Every now and again someone tells you 'form is temporary, class is permanent', and I'm not sure we should forget about Imperial Commander, even though he's rising 11. He reportedly broke a blood vessel and came back lame after the latest Gold Cup, in which he was pulled up, but I would forward the good ground as an excuse - the best of him has been with a little bit of juice in the going. Denman proved that it's not impossible for an 11-year-old to run a mighty race in the Gold Cup when holding every chance in the latest running, and Imperial Commander - winner of three Grade 1s - might do something come March. Before then I hope connections stop messing with the King George - right-handed doesn't suit him - and have a go at the Lexus at Leopardstown over Christmas (possible clash with Quito De La Roque anyone?)

Lastly, everyone look out... In the middle of July the story broke that Kauto Stone, a half-brother to Kauto Star, has joined his illustrious relative at Paul Nicholls's yard. His career so far is similar to those of a lot of the other good French imports - you'd have to include Long Run in that - in that he's already achieved winning form that's the equivalent of Grade 1 in Britain, his highlight so far coming when he took the Grande Steeplechase des 4 Ans - the championship steeplechase for four-year-olds - worth €350,000 at Auteuil in November 2010. That race is over 2m6f, so unlike Kauto Star - who was, of course, another to have spent much of his early career over just 2m - there seems little point in putting Kauto Stone over the minimum trip.

And by the time Cheltenham comes round, he'll be six. Can the young brigade win the Gold Cup again?

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