I think the top NH horses in general are not as tough or as battle tested as they once were – most of them can’t/won’t run on anything faster than good to soft, most of them can’t run much more than four maybe five times a season (technically today was GW’s first run of the new NH season!) and they are far better catered for with any number of level weight G1s they can run in.
Kauto was a little bit of an anomaly in that he had 41 career starts whereas most of the recent top stars fall into the 20-30 career runs bracket (Gaelic Warrior currently on 23 runs). Best Mate (who had just 22 career starts) I think was the one that really started the trend of minimal runs prior to the Gold Cup (his first win in the race was his 4th and final start of that season with his two subsequent wins being his 3rd and final runs of those respective seasons) and in none of his three Gold Cup years did he run inbetween Christmas and Cheltenham.
When Dessie won his Gold Cup in 1989 it was his 6th start of the season (at trips ranging from 2m to 3m2f and on ground ranging from good to firm….gasp!!! to heavy and after Cheltenham he then went on to Aintree too), in the following year the Gold Cup was again his 6th run of the season and then he went on to Ireland to win the Irish National under 12st.
To put it into perspective, Dessie has actually won more NH races (34) than all of the Gold Cup winners since Long Run (2011) have had total career starts!
In athletics the 100m is the Blue Ribbon event but we don’t downplay the gold medal winner at 1500m or 10,000m and say well they are doing that event only because they are not fast enough for the 100m – each event takes a specifical skill in much the same way that the vast majority of Gold Cup horses are not quick enough to win QMCC and QMCC horses don’t generally have the stamina to win a Gold Cup.
That being said, Dessie finsihed 2nd and 3rd in back to back QMCC but had he not been such an inferior horse racing left handed there is a strong argument that he could/would have become the only horse to win the QMCC and Gold Cup, as he had already won a King George prior to a QMCC run.
Even the Stayers Hurdle takes a specific horse to win it, Big Bucks was an anomally in that he wasn’t a fluent natural chaser (although we really never found out if he could have turned into one because of the switch and the fact that Nicholls already had two Gold Cup horses in Kauto and Denman in the yard).
Also Nicholls had Masterminded and whilst we know Kauto fell in a QMCC do we really think he would have had the raw 2m speed to beat Masterminded in a QMCC, especially the Masterminded that murdered Voy Por Ustedes by 19L in 2008 (the same Voy Por Ustedes who Kauto beat 7L in the 2006 Tingle Creek).
Personally, each Championship race has it own place and has unique requirements to win and as such should not be viewed as a lesser event (just a different one) than the Gold Cup…….my favourite NH horse of all time is the dual Champion Hurdler Sea Pigeon and he also wouldn’t be far off being my all time favourite flat horse either given his insane exploits………he regularly mixed both codes year in year out (no wrapping him in cotton wool) and won 21 of his 40 NH races and 16 of his 45 flat races and did so carrying huge weights in both codes (still holds the Ebor weight carrying record of 10st! when winning in 1979, he was giving the 2nd horse Donegal Prince 40lbs) and he did it on every type of ground.
Apologies for the extremely long and veering slightly off topic post.