The tetchiest Champions Day ever but it's brilliant Baaeed we will remember

There was so much to celebrate but this year's Qipco British Champions Day was surely the tetchiest ever, featuring a quantity of finger-pointing that, had it happened at Newbury, would have prompted the stewards to suspend everyone on the premises. Frankie Dettori pointed at Dylan Browne McMonagle, John Gosden pointed at Dettori, Sheikh Fahad pointed at the media, all of which points to a sport that needs to take a week off somewhere sunny.

Such moments of petty conflict get plenty of airing at the time – all the fun of the fair, you might say. But when fans of the game look back on that Ascot card in years to come, they may say: "Ah yes, this was the day Baaeed became a star."

To clock-watchers, he has been a star from day one, all the way back in June, but he had ended up looking a bit workmanlike in the Moulin, his first foray into Group 1 company and against the less-than-mighty Order Of Australia. What he needed was to beat a genuine top-class rival in tricky circumstances, and so it was on Saturday as he inched past Palace Pier to prevail by a neck, despite having had practically no cover from his wide draw up the straight mile.