When Zarkava shone beacon-bright through the Longchamp gloom

It wasn’t an afternoon befitting a coronation. The air was dank, the skies still thick with clouds that had doused the Bois du Boulogne on the morning of October 5, 2008. Yet there she was, a little on the small side as she circled the paddock among strapping older males who sought her scalp.

Ten years on and the abiding memory of Zarkava’s quest for the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe was the overwhelming desire to see a filly of rare brilliance stamp her authority on Europe’s middle-distance championship. She brought a pristine record to Longchamp, she had overcome no end of trouble to win the Prix Vermeille three weeks earlier, but the feeling persisted that she was somehow vulnerable.

Earlier races that day confirmed the turf was riding slow. It was perfect terrain for a scrap, a lung-bursting war of attrition that might sap the strength from a Titan, never mind the elegant three-year-old with her legion of admirers. There was also concern that Zarkava was now indulging the wilful streak of independence with which she was born.