HARRY’S TOP OF HIS GAME

TOPOFTHEGAME earned high praise from Paul Nicholls — and a quote of 8-1 for next year’s Gold Cup — after a battling success.

The giant chestnut, who like 2008 Gold Cup hero Denman is partowned by Paul Barber, got the better of a tussle with Santini by half a length to give Harry Cobden (above) his first Festival winner as Nicholls’ stable jockey.

Denman captured the three-mile novice title 12 months before the biggest triumph of his career, and Nicholls said: “He’s not unlike Denman — we have always believed he would be a serious, serious horse — and he is only going to get better.”