Sir Mark Prescott and Jean-Claude Rouget have helped the new Longchamp find its voice and its soul

My first inkling Alpinista and her connections might be on the way to making an unusual mark on the stubborn public consciousness came in the Saint-Cloud racecourse stables last July.

I had walked up to the top yard where the foreign-trained horses were holed up in search of Charlie Appleby, to get some reaction to Hurricane Lane's below-par performance in the Grand Prix. 

Few trainers welcome the furtive approach of a journalist in the wake of such a reverse and, while Appleby is more helpful than many, on this occasion he was nowhere to be seen.