Class. Simple enough word but all that was needed to describe the performance of Denman at Newbury yesterday. The Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup was billed as a competitive handicap. Try that one again?

It was supposed to be a thorough test of whether Denman, last season's leading novice, was capable of mixing it with the best this season. There were doubts from the punters as to whether he was fit enough to drag 11st 12lb round for an extended three-and-a-quarter miles at the first time of asking. Instead he dragged the life out of the field for a thumping 11-length win and joint-favourite status for the totesport Cheltenham Gold Cup.

Sir Rembrandt took the field through the first mile at a pace that was designed to last on testing ground and Sam Thomas, super-sub for the injured Ruby Walsh, quietly settled Denman in fourth place.

This was always going to be something of an uneasy truce. Denman is like a Chieftan tank fitted with racing plates and it was quickly apparent that Thomas was simply staving off the inevitable. It came at the seventh fence when Denman glided between D'Argent and Dream Alliance and then jumped upsides Sir Rembrandt. A second later, Snowy Mountain, who had supplanted Denman as favourite, fell, but this was never going to be a race about hard-luck stories.

That is, unless one counts having to take on a horse called Denman. Already some jockeys in the field were giving out distress signals but the unmistakeable signal from Thomas was supreme confidence. Sir Rembrandt was receiving 18lbs but he was already starting to feel the pinch and was a spent force by the 16th. Thomas was simply deciding when, not if, he was going to win. Behind him Dream Alliance was grimly hanging on as the gaps started to appear in the pack. Bible Lord appeared in third but was already needing a miracle.

Denman was five lengths clear on the home turn as Character Building was trying to live up to his name and Strong Flow, the winner four years ago, fell at the third last.

Sixteen years ago Carvill's Hill dominated his rivals to win the Welsh National in a rout, but that had been by brute force. Denman simply proved he was different class. The jump at the second last was just to emphasise that point and from the last it was simply a question of "how far?".

Eventually Dream Alliance came in 11 lengths adrift, followed by Character Building, as the rest of the field tottered past the post in their own good time.

Denman may have used something akin to surgical precision to win, but the bookmakers were wielding the cleavers on his price for the Gold Cup. As the dust settled, 5-2 was the best on offer and there were plenty who believe that it could be Denman and not stable companion Kauto Star who could be the best that Paul Nicholls has to offer next March.

None of which bothered the man himself, who admitted Denman had surprised even him. "That was an awesome performance first-time out," he said, with a decent late entry for understatement of the year.

"He's a huge horse and for me to go and say I think he'll win first time out' - you just don't do things like that. We've worked hard and we've done our best with him to get him fit today and it was good enough. It might sound impossible to believe but there is improvement in him.

"The first mile was crucial. I was just nervous that he'd tank for the first mile and leave nothing for the end. But he relaxed for the first mile, then he jumped in front and then I wasn't too worried."

The worry for Walsh, still nursing his dislocated shoulder, is that come the Gold Cup he could have the most enviable, and agonising, of choices. Kauto Star is the undisputed champion but Denman is making relentless progress. Even Nicholls, steadying himself, was getting excited. "Kauto Star and Exotic Dancer are going to be hard to go by but Denman might be the one that's making them go.

"Ruby's stable jockey and he'll have the choice. He'll have to be man enough to make the choice. Sam's ridden both so it wouldn't worry me either way to be honest."

It might be starting to worry Walsh.