Events / Editor / 20 October 2007 /

Run at Kempton Park on Boxing Day, this Grade 1, three-mile chase is one of the highlights of the racing calendar and often one of the most hotly contested betting heats of the whole jumps season.

The race has been won by many of the greatest names in steeplechasing history, often carrying mountains of bets from the British betting public, who take their National Hunt stars to their hearts and bet on them regardless of how short the odds may be.

Arkle, Mandarin, Pendil, Wayward Lad (three times), Desert Orchid (four times), The Fellow, One Man, Kicking King and most recently Kauto Star, have all graced the winners' enclosure at Kempton, most of them going on to attempt to follow up in the Cheltenham Gold Cup less than three months later.

The winner of this race inevitably leaps to the head of the ante-post odds betting list for the Cheltenham feature, but it doesn't always transpire that victory follows and many winners have been beaten at cramped odds taking mountains of big bets with them.

Kempton is a sharp, fast jumps circuit that can allow a horse who barely gets three miles elsewhere to last home. Consequently, the challenge of the gruelling extra two furlongs and stiff uphill finish at Cheltenham can expose any stamina flaws as happened time and again with the great Wayward Lad - brilliant at Kempton, but who just didn't last home the extra distance up the Cheltenham hill.

The King George VI Chase is once again the target for 2007 Gold Cup hero Kauto Star and forms one of the three legs of Betfair's £1 million bonus offered to any horse that can win the at Kempton following the Betfair Chase at Haydock, and then go on to take the Gold Cup.

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