After an excellent 2018, has the tide finally turned for Godolphin?

It was, aptly enough, a bolt from the blue. At Epsom earlier this summer the Charlie Appleby-trained Masar was sent off an unheralded 16-1 shot, but he outran his odds under a fine ride from William Buick to become the first winner of the Epsom Classic in the famous blue silks of Godolphin. It was 41 years to the month after Sheikh Mohammed had his first British winner at Brighton.

In the intervening decades untold sums had been pumped into racing and bloodstock by the sheikh, who with the sovereign wealth of Dubai behind him is by some distance the richest and most powerful man in the sport today, and perhaps the wealthiest to have ever turned his eye to the turf.

Yet in recent years the return on his investment had become so underwhelming it passed through disappointment and bafflement to settle in the realm of embarrassment. In particular, Godolphin had become a helpless bystander as the all-conquering Coolmore operation swept all before them, the two organisations' old rivalry becoming increasingly one-sided.