'I had the feeling that Waldgeist was capable of beating Enable one day'

The story was so well known ahead of time that we could almost recite it in our sleep: the jockey enjoying a landmark season with a career-best haul of Group 1 winners; the five-year-old horse who had proved impervious to the march of time, as good as ever this season; and the master trainer who would leave nothing to chance in his quest for another Arc triumph.

If we had thought to look then all those comments so readily applied to Enable, Frankie Dettori and John Gosden were also in bountiful supply to the men around Waldgeist.

The trouble was that Waldgeist had been unable to beat Enable, for all the brilliance of Andre Fabre and the complete faith shown in him by his jockey, Pierre-Charles Boudot. The form was there in black and white: three meetings, three defeats.