Taaffe hopes to reign with Kicking King

Interview: Brian O'Connor talks to trainer Tom Taaffe about Kicking King's chances and the main dangers.

If Kicking King can win at Cheltenham today the story will write itself. It's 40 years since the greatest chaser of them all won his first Gold Cup and the son of the man who rode Arkle has a first-rate chance of winning the race named after him.

It's one of those scenarios that can often sound a mite corny in the telling but anyone with even half an interest in racing can tell you the sentimental result has an uncanny knack of coming true.

Plenty of stranger things are going to happen in the town of Cheltenham for the next three days than Kicking King sending the nostalgia buffs swooning.

Not that Tom Taaffe will be leading them. As a jockey he brought a cold-eyed logic to big-race opportunities that might not have been as plentiful as his father's, given that he had to cope with the unprecedented economic drain on Irish racing of the 1980s.

Now, as a trainer, he isn't one to indulge in idle flights of fancy about a first festival victory.

"It would be a huge career boost if Kicking King did win but I'm a bit tentative about tempting fate. I don't want to look too far ahead and think about what might happen," he says.

As always when the chances of success are this real, the amount of things that can go wrong suddenly become all too apparent. But even so, confidence continues to grow that Kicking King can provide the highlight of Taaffe's nine-year training career to date.

It's not hard to see why. Physically imposing and naturally talented, the six-year-old also appears to be able to learn from his mistakes.

A costly fall at Christmas has been followed by two faultless rounds of jumping which have resulted in only the English horse Thisthatandtother being rated shorter than him by the bookies.

Considering Thisthatandtother was almost 10 lengths behind the Irish horse in last year's Supreme Novices Hurdle, it's difficult to see the bookmakers' logic but none of the visiting punters are complaining. Taaffe isn't either.

"Thisthatandtother has won his trials well but I think they may have been easier races than the one's Kicking King has been running in in Ireland. But I suppose there is a Paul Nicholls bandwagon and people are jumping on it," he says before going on to examine the threat posed by the other Irish horses in the race.

"I am reasonably confident we can confirm the home form even though Colca Canyon is a horse I have a lot of respect for. He has had a good break and he likes decent ground," Taaffe adds.

Kicking King has a reassuring adaptability when it comes to ground conditions, he has the big race specialist Barry Geraghty on his back and he is a proven performer at the festival, having found only Back In Front too good over hurdles 12 months ago.

Chasing, however, was always going to be his game and now appears to be his time.

"It's in the last few minutes before the start that the buzz comes for me. I can get very anxious then. But usually I'm okay. Even when I was riding I was usually pretty cool, calm and collected," says his trainer.

It's the same when Taaffe is inevitably presented with the "Arkle question". The emergence of Best Mate has meant he has had to cope with it even more than usual.

"I have the height of respect for Best Mate but until any horse has run in and won the big handicaps, as well as winning three Gold Cups, then we won't have seen another Arkle. Comparisons have to be kept in perspective," he says.