The day Cecil moved out of the darkness and into the light

Having just landed the first Classic of his career, Ted Durcan would certainly have been within his rights to expect a fair share of attention and adulation. The 2007 Oaks had gone to Light Shift, ably abetted by the popular Irishman, who for one glorious moment had risen above the scrimmage of the weighing room and stood in the spotlight; it was his day, surely, except that it wasn't.

"That afternoon was Henry’s afternoon," says Durcan quite simply, and few would beg to differ. Sir Henry Cecil, after a seemingly interminable spell becalmed in the doldrums, had returned to his old stamping ground of Epsom to win his eighth Oaks, his 24th British Classic in all, and the racing world was united in its delight and admiration.

Cecil had been through the mill – with the breakdown of his second marriage, the death of his twin brother David and now a cancer diagnosis – and there were times when it looked as though he was spent as a major force in the training ranks. For a man with ten championships under his belt, it must have been doubly hard to end the 2006 campaign in the low, low reaches of the top 100, but at least through the gloom he could see the bright light of a top two-year-old who had already landed the Criterium de Saint-Cloud and went into winter quarters as a leading Oaks fancy.