You want to know how good a horse Kauto Star is?

Me too. This horse could turn out to be anything. He's now the best-rated chaser in Britain and Ireland over two miles, two and a half miles and three miles. Any distance you like, he's shown he can handle it.

He's won two big races over the past three weeks and he's hardly got out of breath in either of them.

I didn't have to use the whip on him even once yesterday. It couldn't have been easier for me. All I had to do was sit on him and watch him go. His jumping was perfect the whole way until he got to the second last. He pinged the railway fences and the pond fence without a hair out of place.

I don't know what I was at coming to the second last . . .

you'd swear it was the second last in the Gold Cup or something the way I wound him up for it. But he's such a clever horse and such a nimble jumper that he knew how to get me out of jail. He changed his mind when he got to it and found himself a way to get over it. From there on, I was pulling him up all the way to the line.

And for anyone thinks it was maybe too easy for him, look how far Voy Por Ustedes was clear of the rest. He ran his race and he's an Arkle winner. But Kauto Star had him beaten before the last fence. One minute, we were riding upsides and the next, Kauto Star quickened away. Two strides was about all it took.

He's a battler too, make no mistake.

When we crossed the winning line and just about came to a stop, Dempsey came running up on our inside. He was loose, after falling and sending Andrew Tinkler flying at the sixth-last fence, and when he passed us Kauto Star looked up and took away off after him.

I had to pull him up and calm him down, let him know his work was done for the day. But that's a sign of the kind of horse he is. He's ultra-competitive and never wants to let anything pass him.

It goes without saying that I'm thrilled over the whole thing. I'm happiest today for Paul Nicholls because he was under a lot of outside pressure for taking the decision to run him.

He rang me early in the week to ask me should we run him and my reaction was to ask him what his gut feeling was. And when he said that his instinct was to run him, I said that he should trust himself in that case. Paul doesn't make too many decisions that are misguided . . . his instinct isn't usually far wrong. That's why he's the champion trainer.

His instinct was based on a couple of sound reasons. It was a race that he knew Kauto Star could win because he'd already won it last year.

Dropping back in trip wasn't going to be big problem because until he stayed the three miles at Haydock, two miles was his best trip as far as we could be certain of.

The other thing is he's in such great nick at the moment.

He's fit, he loves to run and gallop and jump. So although the King George is one of the main targets of the year for him, who's to say that he won't wake up with a snotty nose one morning in Christmas week? It just made sense from every angle to run him.

Kauto Star is a racehorse. Racing is his life. We could wrap him up in cotton wool like Henrietta Knight did with Best Mate but I don't think that would satisfy anyone, least of all the horse. You don't see Alex Ferguson wrapping Wayne Rooney up in cotton wool, not for the soccer equivalent of the Tingle Creek anyway.

Like I said, this horse could turn out to be anything. It's every jockey's dream to come across one superstar in his lifetime . . . Jim Culloty had Best Mate, Charlie Swan had Istabraq. Now I have Kauto Star.