'I've never heard so much bull**** in all my life' - David Elsworth steals show

The Cartier Awards are usually such a bastion of racing royalty, a stamping ground of the princes, kings and well-bred others who lord it over the turf, so the appearance of David Elsworth on stage, not as a gatecrasher but to receive one of the most coveted prizes in racing, came rather out of left field.

Here was a man who was introduced, to paraphrase, as the illegitimate son of an absentee father, who was raised in a Wiltshire council house and never darkened the doors of a public school or palace in his life.

At an evening hosted by the world's leading purveyor of luxury goods, here was a roguish character who formerly purveyed goods that were not quite so luxurious on a Swindon market stall.