Even though there was little to warrant it, Paul Nicholls was more nervous than usual when Kauto Star made his way to the start at Down Royal on Saturday. After all, here was the sport's biggest money-winner, never out of the first two in 17 completed starts for the champion trainer, trading at 2-5 to see off an ordinary field.

“I don't know why that was,” Nicholls reflected yesterday. “The horse was returning after a seven-month break, he'd got beat a couple of times at the end of last season and there were doubters. I suppose some of it must have got under my skin.”

Nicholls' emotive state was even more surprising because Kauto Star had been working the house down at home. “He had shown us so much,” he said, “but even then, you want to see them do it on the track. With good horses at the start of the season, you want to see them perform.”

Kauto Star certainly performed. Never out of a hack canter, the bay cruised up to Knight Legend, the leader on sufferance three fences out, and came home on a tight rein. He would exert himself more strenuously when working up his trainer's uphill gallop of a morning. It was a heartwarming comeback from a horse who ran through the pain barrier in defeats at Cheltenham and Aintree last term.

The concept of entertaining doubt is alien to Nicholls. Yet the nerves jangled because Kauto Star is the first genuine superstar he has trained. “Racing needs these horses to come back each year and show the sport at its best,” he reflected. “He didn't beat much, but that is irrelevant. It was the way he did it that mattered.”

For the first time Nicholls fitted Kauto Star with a sheepskin noseband, a piece of tack designed to focus the horse's mind. “It might have made him concentrate a bit,” he said. “He jumped beautifully this time. We have done a lot of work on that; he was a bit sloppy in the Gold Cup. That's what gave me the idea to try the noseband.”

The Gold Cup was the first time in more than two years that Kauto Star was beaten by a better horse. And Denman, his master that day, gave Nicholls another reason to smile when he returned to the gallops last week after treatment for an irregular heartbeat. “We'll take it quietly with him,” the trainer said. “He will only need one start before the Gold Cup.”

Denman's comeback remains three months distant, by which time Kauto Star will have contested Haydock's Betfair Chase, on November 22, and the King George at Kempton. On this evidence, it is hard to see him being beaten before he collides with Denman at Cheltenham in March.

Nicholls also saddled Noland to win over two and a half miles at Down Royal. It was his fourth winner from six runners - and earnings in excess of €300,000 (about £235,000) - in Ireland this season. The show moves on to Exeter tomorrow, when Twist Magic and Natal represent him in the William Hill Gold Cup.

Yet Nicholls is far from alone among English trainers in making early hay. Nicky Henderson dispatched four winners from his in-form Lambourn stable on Saturday, while Nigel Twiston-Davies sent out Pettifour, a leading staying novice last term, to maintain his unbeaten streak over hurdles at Wetherby. The World Hurdle is an obvious target for Pettifour, whose stablemate, Ollie Magern, was run down by State Of Play only in the dying strides of the bet356 Charlie Hall Chase.

Kauto Star's reappearance served to underline that the jumps season is gathering pace. The point was emphasised yesterday when Albertas Run and Tidal Bay, respectively winners of the two- and three-mile novices' chases at the Cheltenham Festival, met over two and a half miles at Carlisle.

Victory went to the Howard Johnson-trained Tidal Bay, who was an emphatic 11-length winner from Rimsky. Albertas Run finished last of the four runners.