This article is taken from the December-January 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

If you want an early Christmas treat, google “Wayward Lad King George”. His three wins in 1982, 1983 and 1985 are each, in their own way, about as good as it gets. The nostalgia dopamine hit is off the charts when you realise some of the horses he beat: Night Nurse, Silver Buck, Little Owl and Burrough Hill Lad for starters. And the ride John Francome gave Wayward Lad in 1982 is one of the two greatest I’ve ever seen (the other was also Francome, on Sea Pigeon in the 1981 Champion Hurdle).

It’s December — and that means it’s the King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day. The roll call of winners is a catalogue not just of some of the greatest ever chasers but of some of the most popular. The Cheltenham Gold Cup is, of course, the ultimate race for a staying chaser, but the true greats show they’ve got it all by winning over both Cheltenham’s testing three-and-a-quarter miles and Kempton’s speedier three-mile course.

That’s Arkle and Mill House, obviously — and in more recent decades, Silver Buck, The Fellow, See More Business, Best Mate, Kicking King and Long Run. Add to that list Kauto Star, winner of the King George a still unbelievable five times and the Gold Cup twice — and there is still one horse missing, whose name remains synonymous with jump racing even for people with no real interest in the sport: Desert Orchid, who won four King Georges and a Gold Cup.

Last year’s race still doesn’t seem to have been possible, no matter how many times you re-watch it. Hewick — who cost just €850 — was so far detached after the first circuit that his in-race odds reached 550/1. And yet somehow he started to make up ground and in the final 100 yards flew past the post to win. Racing, eh?

This year’s field looks to be one of the most exciting for many years, even if the ante-post favourite, Il Est Francais, bombed out in his trial at the French course, Auteuil, in November. French-trained horses have had a brilliant record in the race, mainly through the enterprise of trainer François Doumen, whose 25/1 shot Nupsala beat Desert Orchid in 1987 and single-handedly changed the perception of French chasers — the first of five wins for Doumen.

But although Il Est Francais was thrilling when he won the novice chase at Kempton last Christmas, he won’t be there this year. C’est la vie, as it were.

The early entries — 14 from Ireland, two from France and eight from Britain — tell their own story about the relative strength of top-class chasing. Two of those Irish entries — last year’s leading novice Gaelic Warrior and the two-times Gold Cup winner Galopin Des Champs — are both trained by Willie Mullins and it seems unlikely either will run, given that Mullins tends to stick to the same programme for his chasers year after year.

But having won last year’s British trainers’ championship he might, perhaps, be eyeing up another — and winning the King George would put a sizeable dent in the lead that’s already been built up by Harry Skelton this season.

Skelton’s Grey Dawning looks ideal for Kempton, and Henry de Bromhead has said he is leaning towards the race for the hugely underrated Envoi Allen, who won last month’s Down Royal Champion Chase, holding off the King George winner, Hewick.

But last year’s contest showed that there is every chance that the race will go to a lively outsider, and if we are looking for one, it seems mad to me that last year’s King George runner-up, Bravemansgame, is 25/1. Sure, he hasn’t won for a while, but his form is pretty solid and his trainer Paul Nicholls has won the race an astonishing 13 times. He must be worth a modest punt, each way.