THISTLECRACK looked brilliant in the King George. Colin Tizzard’s horse travelled with his customary verve and enthusiasm, he showed his pace and he showed his stamina and, crucially, his jumping was good.

Actually, he out-jumped his stable companion Cue Card, and you would have got fair odds about that as they lined up.

It is some achievement, a thrice-raced novice winning a King George. You don’t win a top-class chase against the top staying chasers in the business on your fourth run in a chase. Or you didn’t, until Coneygree won the Gold Cup last year. (Yes, 2015 is still last year.)

It might be a trend. It is possible to pick holes, not because Thistlecrack wasn’t good, because he was, he could hardly have done any more than he did, but because he may not have been pushed as hard as he might have been pushed.

Cue Card was not as good as he can be. He missed a few of his fences, he didn’t travel or jump as well as he can travel and jump. He only beat Silviniaco Conti by a short-head for second place, the horse he beat by 42 lengths when they last met in the Betfair Chase.

And Tea For Two was only another head back in fourth. Tea For Two is a talented chaser and he excels at Kempton, but he is rated 23lb inferior to Cue Card. He really shouldn’t have been getting to within a short-head and a head of last year’s King George winner.

Thistlecrack won by just over three lengths. Admittedly it could have been more, if Tom Scudamore hadn’t been jumping the last three fences as carefully as he did, ensuring that he got to the other side safely as a priority. We just don’t know how much more.

The same is true of the time. It could have been faster if Thistlecrack had been pushed harder, but we don’t know by how much. And the winning time as it stands was not overly impressive.

It was faster than standard by a half a second, and it was just faster than Racing Post par by 0.02secs/furlong, but that is not overly fast for a King George.

Cue Card and Vautour went 0.20secs/furlong faster than par last year, Silviniaco Conti went 0.18secs/furlong faster than par in 2014 and 0.17secs/furlong faster in 2013. The 11-rising-12-year-old Kauto Star went 0.21secs/furlong faster in 2011 and the nine-year-old Kauto Star went 0.40secs/furlong faster in 2009.

Unsurprisingly, the King George is usually run in a significantly faster time than the time in which they run the Feltham Chase, the Grade 1 novices’ race run over the King George course and distance on the same day.

Kauto Star was over eight seconds faster in the King George in 2009, for example, than Long Run was in winning the Feltham. Cue Card and Vautour were six and a half seconds faster last year than Tea For Two was in the Feltham. Silviniaco Conti was seven and a half seconds faster than Annacotty in 2013.

On Monday, Thistlecrack clocked a time that was just 0.7 seconds faster than the time that his stable companion Royal Vacation clocked in winning the Feltham Chase. Not only that, but if Might Bite had popped the last instead of standing way off and crashing to the floor, Nicky Henderson’s horse would have gone significantly faster than Thistlecrack.

Say that Might Bite was 20 lengths clear at the final fence, and say he would have won by 16 lengths, then, taking one length as 0.25 seconds, he would have gone over three seconds faster than Thistlecrack.

Of course, time is not everything, but it is one of the significant indicators that we have of the merit of a performance.

Put with that the fact that Thistlecrack’s least impressive performance over fences was on the one occasion on which he raced over fences at Cheltenham, and that his chase wins have been gained in fields of, respectively, five, four, five and five, and there is still something to prove.

Thistlecrack is unquestionably a top-class National Hunt racehorse, some say potentially the best they have ever seen. That may well be the case, we will hopefully find out just how good he is in the fullness of time.

It will be a fascinating journey. For now, you are entitled to look for potential weaknesses in the case for the even-money favourite for the Gold Cup, and the Thistlecrack case may not be watertight yet.