Silver Fox gets into the henhouse – but does it really matter?

Most of the time, at this remove from the Lord Mayor's Feast, there is precious little that hasn't already been carefully gnawed over, the bones picked clean and the clean bones gone, the caravan rolling remorselessly on to the next rendezvous.

By now Arrogate's tour de force in the Dubai World Cup is almost five days on the lips and already a lifetime in the memory banks, his first-furlong sandbagging, his mid-race inhalation of most of his rivals, his final furlong that at least allowed all observers to get their own breath back before releasing it again in a great huff of superlatives.

He's the best horse in the world, the best on dirt, better than anything that runs on turf, synthetics or bubble wrap, and in overcoming adversity in a reasonably up-to-par World Cup he didn't advance his rating but he sure as hell advanced his allure.