Best Mate helps bring McCoy record

King George VI chase report: Tony McCoy declared his love for Best Mate after the favourite provided plenty of Christmas cheer for punters with a battling success in the £150,000 Pertemps King George VI Chase at Kempton yesterday.

"I'd marry him if I could," gushed the champion jockey as he returned to the winner's enclosure.

The 11 to 8 favourite will now return to Cheltenham next March to attempt back-to-back wins in the Tote Gold Cup, for which he is a best-priced 5 to 2 with Coral. But in a race of changing fortunes, Best Mate's supporters experienced plenty of palpitations on their way to the payout queue.

Travelling and jumping supremely well, Best Mate and McCoy hit the front at the fifth-last fence but were joined at the next by last year's winner, Florida Pearl, and suddenly the champion had to ask his mount for an effort.

However, as Florida Pearl and Native Upmanship faded in the testing conditions, it was Marlborough and Bacchanal - Nicky Henderson's two challengers for the race - who emerged to do battle with the winner.

Approaching the final fence it seemed possible either could get there, but a slightly sticky jump by Marlborough gave the advantage back to Best Mate, who stayed on doggedly to win by one and a half lengths. There were a further four lengths back to early front-runner Bacchanal, with the trio a long way clear of Florida Pearl.

Winning-trainer Henrietta Knight, who admits she finds the pressure of the big occasion hard to handle, opted instead to saddle Edredon Bleu to victory at Wincanton. But her husband and assistant Terry Biddlecombe were present to see Best Mate go one place better than he had achieved in the race 12 months earlier.

"It was a messy race and Tony said he didn't want to go to the front too soon, but the horse just took him there as he was going so well," Biddlecombe said. "You've got to remember this was just his sixth or seventh race over fences. He is a young horse and on a little bit better ground he might be even better."

Though stable jockey Jim Culloty was forced to miss the ride through suspension, Biddlecombe emphasised that the yard's number one man would be back in the saddle come the Gold Cup.

"I might have to arrange a kidnapping," joked McCoy. "I am really sorry for Jim, who is a great guy and lives down my road. But 'unfortunately' he will have to wait until the Gold Cup to ride him. I was conscious today of the fact he put down a bit when Jim asked him at the second-last and last at Huntingdon and didn't want to ask him to do too much.

"He wasn't at his best on the ground either. But he stayed well and he battled well and he is an amazing horse. He is all class. I knew if something came to me at the last I had a little bit in the tank, and when he heard all of the cheers he pulled himself together a bit and picked up."

For McCoy, it was the sort of red-letter day his followers have started to expect. Along with Needwood Lion and the impressive Lord Sam, Best Mate's success was the middle leg of a 16 to 1 treble that saw him move on to the 202-winner mark for the season, with Lord Sam's win breaking McCoy's own best for the fastest-ever double century of winners.

Bookmakers Paddy Power offer even-money he will reach 300 by the end of the campaign.

But for Henderson it was a case of so near but so far with his two star chasers.

"They've both run blinders and just found one too good," he said. "Marlborough was always travelling and really enjoyed himself all the way. In athletics terms, that's probably his PB. When he was fourth in the Gold Cup last year you would probably say that at his age it was as good as he is. But now you would have to say he's run above that.

"Bacchanal has to get on an even keel and he was always just finding it quite hard work. Mick (Fitzgerald) was having to ask for everything all the way."

Florida Pearl's Willie Mullins blamed the underfoot conditions for the failure of his charge to run up to his best. "He was there or thereabouts from the fourth-last," he said. "But when he couldn't take the lead coming round the last bend I knew the game was up."