The Arc's draw ceremony was a pointless piece of theatre - and I'm ignoring the whole thing when it comes to my big-race fancy

• From flying Ebor balls to Parisian pageantry, racing’s growing obsession with draw ceremonies baffles me

• The sport should stage more big-event celebrations – just without the tedious draw reveals

• My Arc fancy comes from a stall that hasn't produced the winner in decades – and it doesn't bother me one bit 

Well, on the bright side, there was no sign of Oli Bell looking for table tennis balls in a rosebush. Every cloud and all that. 

That was what happened at York back in August when the draw for the Ebor descended into farce. The door on one of the drums wasn't closed properly midway through the process and a heap of balls started bouncing all over the place, eventually nestling into the hedge sitting in front of the podium. Glorious. 

There were no drums, balls or rosebushes in Paris on Thursday night for the plush Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe draw. Indeed, it took only three minutes for all 16 runners to be allocated their stalls once the unveiling process began. We had waited hours to find out who was housed where and, in the end, it was all over in a flash with little or no suspense. What on earth was the point of the whole thing, then?