REPORTS FROM PRESTBURY PARK/Champion Chase report:SUPERLATIVES THAT had been kept in storage for a French-bred star carrying green and yellow colours in today's Gold Cup had to be broken out in a hurry after Kauto Star's young stable companion Master Minded put in an astonishing performance to win yesterday's Seasons Holidays Queen Mother Champion Chase at Cheltenham.
There may have been another nine races on the unique marathon festival card, and one of them included a bit of history with Inglis Drever's third "Stayers" crown, but in the sheer brilliance stakes, there was no competition to Master Minded's 19-length rout.
It was so good, both Ruby Walsh and Paul Nicholls struggled to describe it, although they had a damn good go. "Jesus, he's some horse" beamed the champion jockey who was breaking his duck for the week.
"He's unbelievable. I was worried I was going too easily. We thought he was good, but not this good. He's a machine."
Nicholls, who beforehand wore the anxious face of a trainer fearful that his powerful festival team weren't quite running up to par, afterwards had a look of uncomplicated joy at what he had just witnessed.
"He's awesome for a five-year-old. I'm gobsmacked really," said Britain's champion trainer.
"I knew he had been improving at home but that was incredible," he added.
When hard-nosed professionals like Walsh and Nicholls start reaching for flowery-stuff, it's time to sit up and smell the quality.
Owner Clive Smith pointed out that his Gold Cup favourite, Kauto Star, fell in this race two years ago. The only thing Master Minded looked like falling over was the rush of bookmaker receipts predicting that next year's Champion Chase crown is his already too.
More than one firm are offering only even money about that but then they, too, had just watched a display of the highest quality.
Off a white-hot pace shared between the Irish hope Schindlers Hunt and Tamarinbleu, everything else in the race was flat out almost from the start - except for Master Minded.
At the top of the hill, Walsh took a peep around and could hardly believe what he was looking at.
"I was thinking this is probably not the right thing but he was going so well it didn't matter," reported the Irishman, whose only semblance of a danger for the last half-mile was the former title-holder Voy Por Ustedes.
Even he was a busted flush after the second last, however, as a new two-mile star bounded up the hill, leaving even those strung out behind him impressed.
"That was an awesome performance by the winner," conceded Voy Por Ustedes' trainer, Alan King, while Schindlers Hunt's trainer Dessie Hughes added: "The winner was a machine, unbelievable, and he's a beautiful horse to look at too."
For the €300,000 that Smith splashed out for Master Minded last summer, a pleasant appearance might be the least he would expect.
What he has got, however, is a horse that has opened up the possibility of a remarkable Champion Chase-Gold Cup double within 24 hours.
What Walsh and Nicholls have got is a horse to dream of for years to come and what racing has go't is a new two-mile star that might ultimately rival the great winners of the race, maybe even the sole triple winner Badsworth Boy (1983-85) himself.
And after a year of debate surrounding his clash with Denman, Kauto Star has now got a new rival for the limelight in the shape of a new superstar who just happens to carry the same colours. It's tough at the top.
