FOR a sport which manufactures legends on tales of glory and romance, this would be the story to trump them all.

If Kauto Star can win today’s Cheltenham Gold Cup, it will be a yarn so extraordinary it will be worthy of a Disney epic.

Consider the plot.

The only horse to regain a Gold Cup, with victories in 2007 and 2009, 12 months ago he looked to have bowed out in thrilling and dignified fashion – losing nothing in defeat after battling hard with Long Run and stablemate Denman up the famous Cheltenham hill.

Only Kauto Star refused to go quietly into the night.

At Ditcheat, where he is trained by Paul Nicholls, something amazing has happened and the 12-year-old, already assured his place among racing’s greatest, now has a shot at immortality.

Long Run’s win in National Hunt’s Blue Riband race looked for all the world like the changing of the guard but the younger horse has been put firmly in his place ever since.

Twice the two have met and twice Kauto Star has had the upper hand, firstly at Haydock where he produced a sensational display of jumping to win by eight lengths and then at Kempton where a record fifth King George VI Chase was secured with Long Run once again in the slipstream.

If that was all there was to it, it would still be an exciting looking film script. But the drama has continued.

After a fall in a routine schooling session that Nicholls described as sickening, Kauto Star’s participation in the Gold Cup was in real doubt.

Rated only 50/50 at one point, the trainer’s team worked round the clock and the horse picked himself up, literally, to make a remarkable recovery.

And so to today’s climax.

We all know what happens in the movies and, with the greatest respect to Long Run, there will be 70,000 spectators packed into Prestbury Park who are all hoping for the fairytale to come true.

So can he do it?

The sceptics argue that the extra couple of furlongs and the uphill finish of the Gold Cup will benefit Long Run’s stamina.

Nicky Henderson’s star hasn’t looked the horse of last year, and isn’t attacking his fences in the same breathtaking fashion, but still only finished a length and a quarter behind Kauto in the King George and, crucially, was gaining at the end.

The tactics that day, as at Haydock, had been to have Kauto Star try to dominate Long Run and they are unlikely to bear the same fruit in the Gold Cup, particularly with front-runners like Midnight Chase ready to set a searching pace.

This will be more cat and mouse, more restrained, with a thrilling finish in prospect.

It’s hardly a two-horse race either.

Midnight Chase, who will be ridden by former Crambeck jockey Dougie Costello, has a phenomenal record around Cheltenham having won five times there – most recently in the Argento Chase at the end of January.

Costello has his own brilliant story to tell, today’s contest his shot at redemption after his Festival dreams were ended so cruelly last year when he suffered a double leg break at Stratford the day before the Festival meeting was due to get under way.

Midnight Chase, with super sub Tom Scudamore on board, finished fifth in the Gold Cup then, 19 lengths adrift of Long Run, but Costello gets on so well with the ten-year-old that some shrewd judges are expecting further improvement today.

Costello isn’t prone to getting carried away but he is excited about his mount’s chances.

“You would seriously have to say that, at best, he could win and, at worst, he could be third or fourth,” he told Turf Talk a couple of weeks ago.

Add in Burton Port, who ran Long Run to half a length in a Newbury trial last month, and the likes of Diamond Harry and Time For Rupert, both of whom are hoping for a return to their best after problems over the last year, and a contest worthy of a showpiece is on the cards.

But, ultimately, it is all about Kauto Star.

A one-off, “the horse of a lifetime” according to Nicholls – who has had more than his fair share of good ones – and who captures the imagination like an Arkle or a Desert Orchid.

If you are lucky enough to be at Cheltenham, revel in the experience. If you can’t be here, get in front of a television set.

For who knows when we will see a horse this good again, and we could just witness the ultimate happy ending.