Crunch time for War Front as the 2017 turf battle approaches

Make no mistake, War Front is an outstanding sire. A tally of 56 black-type winners, 12 top-flight scorers among them, from seven crops to have raced attest to that, as do his many yearlings with multi-million dollar price tags. It is not for nothing that he has climbed from an introductory covering fee of $12,500 at Claiborne Farm in Kentucky to $250,000.

And yet, and yet. The son of Danzig often finds himself on the wrong end of social media barbs and there remains a degree of scepticism towards him from some British and Irish breeders.

The cause is an accumulation of European-trained offspring who have shown great promise at two but failed to deliver at three and later. The most notorious case was Air Force Blue, a brilliant champion at two who showed nothing in four disappointing runs at three last year.