Unheralded Pyledriver stands tall after defeating the might of Ballydoyle

Not since Dick Turpin plied his trade on the Great North Road have so many masked horsemen been seen in pursuit of the swag.

By Bizarre out of Unprecedented, Ascot’s weirdest opening day gave not so much food for thought as a banquet for the brain. And it made for a distinctly disorientating mouthful to be frank.

Suddenly the royal course, usually thronged by impassioned enthusiasts and once-a-year tourists of every stripe, had been transformed into Berkshire’s haunted ballroom, the dancers out on course doing their customarily magnificent stuff but all to the echo of emptiness rather than that reassuring roar that customarily greets the great tussles of the turf.