His dreams weren't even this good – how could they have been? For the last fortnight, Harry Redknapp confessed to lying in bed and imagining a scene in which The Jukebox Man swept through after the last fence and charged to immortality.

Reality, as it turned out, was better than fantasy. Much better. In one of the most thrilling finishes ever seen at Kempton Park, the kind that invoked yelps, gasps and a noise to raise the roof, Redknapp's pride and joy came out on top with the kind of flourish that you usually only see in a movie.

The Jukebox Man threatened to be swamped at the last of 19 fences, when the joint-favourites Gaelic Warrior and Jango Baie attacked and the reigning King George VI Chase holder Banbridge came to defend his crown, but none of them considered the force of the foe they faced.

Redknapp has likened The Jukebox Man to Stuart Pearce and Neil Ruddock, as he won't take any prisoners, and in scarcely believable final 150 yards, the gelding put down his handsome head down and poked his nose out for jockey Ben Jones just when it mattered, obliging at odds of 7/1.

In the parade ring, Redknapp was mobbed but, initially, he wouldn't join in the celebrations. The judge was still trying to determine the pixels on his photograph but then came the announcement. First – number eight: cue pandemonium.

'I can't believe it,' Redknapp gasped. He's been a racehorse owner since 1989. There have been some nice animals in that time but The Jukebox Man is something different, a genuine top-notcher, bursting with talent and aggression. The foundation to this victory came from his immaculate jumping and desire to lead the field.

'Just to run here I thought was a great thing,' Redknapp continued. 'I was so proud to have a runner. But to have the winner is special. What a race he's run! He jumped unbelievable and then they came to him and I thought he was beaten. Suddenly he was going to finish fourth.'

But he didn't. This, to make an analogy, was a team being a goal down in injury time put pulling the situation out of the fire. It was a huge result, not just for the owner, the quietly-outstanding jockey or Ben Pauling, the successful trainer, but the sport as a whole.

'To turn into the straight with so many (of the eight runners) in with a chance, it was always going to be a great race,' said Pauling, for whom this was a hugely important moment in his upwardly-mobile career. 'He was in tight at the last and slow away but what guts he has shown!

'You don't usually see them get back up after the last like that. It's incredible. I'm chuffed to pieces for everyone in our (Cotswolds) yard and particularly for Harry. This is a dream. This everything. I was absolutely delighted it was a proper ding-dong of race because you want to win the good ones.'

And how it was a day for good ones. Kitzbuhel, for Paul Townend and Willie Mullins, swaggered in the Kauto Star Novices Chase; Sir Gino, back after a year-long absence, won the Christmas Hurdle in such thrilling style that his trainer Nicky Henderson compared his talent to Constitution Hill.

On a normal day, those horses – both owned by Joe and Marie Donnelly – would have had the headlines but not now. There was only one story it was all about Redknapp, who still couldn't quite the enormity of what had happened as he drank orange juice in the winning connections lounge.

'He won by nose? Oh My God!' he said. 'How close is that? Football has been my life, you know, but racing is something else. We had a lot of support here. And you know what? I've absolutely loved it.'