'I rode some great horses - but there was something different about Mill Reef'

Lester Piggott would attest that there was ample reason for the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe’s description as a French fortress. From the mid-1960s a succession of high-profile defeats on horses trained in Britain and Ireland left the great jockey in the depths of despair.

In five successive years from 1966 Piggott ran the full gamut of heartbreak. First up he was well beaten on the Noel Murless-trained Aunt Edith, who started favourite. The following year he finished third on the well-fancied Ribocco, then runner-up in each of the next three years aboard Sir Ivor, Park Top and Nijinsky, whose defeat by Sassafras came laced with controversy.

Although Piggott was criticised for asking too much of Nijinsky, the colt was not at his best. The Triple Crown winner had been active since April and the Arc, run in early October, was his seventh race of an arduous campaign in 1970. Piggott must have cast a doleful eye at connections of Mill Reef, who endeavoured to win the following year’s Arc on the back of a similar campaign.