Alan King already bridles at his billing as the man to challenge Paul Nicholls' hegemony. The burden results from his starting the season with 190 horses, yet that offers encouragement by numbers alone. He knew that long before he left Wincanton on Saturday after Katchit, his Champion Hurdle winner, suffered his second defeat in as many starts this term.

Compounding that setback was the detail that Nicholls saddled five of the seven winners - and two runners-up - at what amounts to a home fixture for the champion trainer. Nicholls is to Wincanton what butter is to bread, but King was unmoved. To him, what Nicholls is to Wincanton, Katchit is to Cheltenham, which is the five-year-old's next port of call.

To see Nicholls move easily around punters that piled into his every runner was to recognise a man at the peak of his powers. His horses try hard, they are freakishly consistent and few need a run. Even on his reappearance, Nicholls' Takeroc usurped Katchit as favourite for the tote-sponsored Elite Hurdle.

With King, however, the public will have to get used to a different operator. If it seemed audacious for him to throw Katchit into the Nicholls heartland at hugely disadvantageous weights, it mattered not a jot to the man himself. Afterwards, as the view crystallised that a near ten-length third amounted to disappointment, King was more than a little perplexed.

“What did everyone expect?” he protested. “It was an impossible task today, giving away all that weight. I just felt he needed more match practice after [his comeback at] Kempton. That's the only reason I brought him.” Perhaps Nicholls will be obliged to deal with similar inquiries after Denman returns in the new year.

Katchit started struggling at halfway when he might have been expected to last longer. Equally, by the time Chomba Womba had taken Takeroc's measure between the last two flights, Katchit might have been expected to fold. He did not. He kept going in the same, obdurate way that served him so well in the Champion Hurdle.

“They've made it a proper test today,” King reflected, “and he's stayed on. He's kept battling away and Choc [Thornton] hasn't been hard on him. I've used this to get him ready for his next run. Make no mistake, I think he's still pretty good.”

Given that Cheltenham is the only place to judge Katchit, the Boylesports.com International Hurdle on December 13 will be his first meaningful outing of the season. Indeed, Katchit thrived on his racing to the extent that he progressed throughout last season. A very different model will step forward to defend his crown in March.

Nicholls, meanwhile, goes from strength to strength. Two further winners at Sandown took his day's haul to seven. One of them, Free World, earned quotes for the Arkle Chase after a winning debut over fences. But Breedsbreeze is unlikely to run at the Cheltenham Festival after winning for the second time in as many starts over fences over 2 miles at Wincanton.

“Which race would you go for?” Nicholls asked. “He certainly wouldn't get three miles and a furlong round Cheltenham, and I don't think the two-miler would suit him unless it was properly soft. He is also very happy going right-handed, so we might have to think of something else.”

The promise of further riches beckons Nicholls this weekend when Cheltenham's Paddy Power meeting gets under way on Friday. Despite some interesting early skirmishes, this three-day fixture still heralds the start of the jumps season proper. All the leading stables will be out in force, but those expecting King to feature as prominently as Nicholls are at least a year ahead of themselves.