Last Saturday, we were coming down to that last fence very quickly and we met it on a terrible stride. He always hangs a little bit left and so I loosened the right rein a little bit to let him have a bit of room to jump it. When I loosened the rein, he just stepped on the fence. It was the first fence the whole way round that I didn't have full contact with his mouth. It won't happen again.

If there was some one thing that he or I was doing wrong or if there was one mistake that linked Newbury with Kempton with Sandown, then I'd be worried. But there isn't.

They were three completely different mistakes and the only things common to all three are the horse and the jockey.

In the Tingle Creek, I gave him a squeeze to pick up at the second last and he changed his mind, didn't take off properly and got in close and hit it.

At the last in the King George, when I thought he'd shortened up a bit, he came out of my hands and just paddled onto it. To be honest, he should have jumped it no problem. Once he took off, he had no reason for not getting across. But the other day was probably the worst of the three in that he didn't do anything. He just stepped into fence. I should have kept hold of his head. I've watched it a couple of times and that's all I can come up with. If I'd kept a hold of his head all the way to the fence, he wouldn't have done what he did.

But he just doesn't fall. Both last week and in the Tingle Creek, there was a split second where I thought, "Oh, Jesus" but he righted himself both times. And actually, at Kempton, I never thought for a second that he'd go down.

The secret to him staying up on his feet is how low he keeps his hind end. If his style of jumping kept his arse away up in the air, he'd have pitched over on his head by now. But his natural way of jumping keeps it very, very low. You often see some horses sort of arc themselves over a fence with their action very round but in that situation, once they hit the fence hard the momentum of their hind end is carrying it in a loop.

With Kauto Star, the plane is flatter and the momentum is carrying him more forward than up. It's because of that that he gets away with paddling through the odd one. If that plane wasn't so flat, he would have tipped up onto his head last Saturday. And as the only thing separating his hind end and his head, I say hurray for the flat plane.

In the book, he's the winner of the Gold Cup. Last week, his mistake at the last gave away all the momentum to L'Ami and Tony McCoy but he hauled him back in before the line. He's battle-hardened and he's beaten everything that's taken a shot at him. All that's left to prove is whether or not he gets that extra quarter of a mile up the hill at Cheltenham and as I've said here before, nobody's going to know that until around 3.30 on 16 March.

But if Kauto Star is only encouraging the doubters in the run up to Cheltenham, Denman is fairly answering them. He was unbelievable at Newbury last week and is improving the whole time.

He's a real old-fashioned Irish horse that came up through the point-to-points and will keep getting better. Last Saturday was definitely the most professional performance he's put in and he'll go to Cheltenham a deserved favourite for the Sun Alliance chase.

I went to the festival last year convinced that Denman and Kauto Star were my best chances for the week and I turned out to be wrong both times. All three of us are a year older and hopefully a year better. We'll see in four weeks.