Lingfield should be better than it was for its biggest day - but Britain does at least now have a Derby horse

Having the afternoon's feature events so unusually early at Lingfield, while surprising and unsatisfactory, did bring one benefit. It meant there was only a short wait for the afternoon's best bit of news, namely that Britain has at least one genuine hope to challenge Ballydoyle's huge Derby cavalry.

In some ways it was like a return to the time when Lingfield's Classic trials on occasions had to be staged at 12.30pm and 1pm in order to gain a spot in the BBC's FA Cup Final Grandstand programme. These days the races are broadcast on ITV and the Cup Final is still a week away, so the decision to schedule the two Epsom sighters at 1.28pm and 1.58pm was a little perplexing. That said, if you happened to have anything to do with Maltese Cross, you would have cared not one jot.

Even earlier in the day, at just before 11am, the racecourse speakers had been playing the Tears For Fears hit Everybody Wants To Rule The World. Aidan O'Brien might not rule the world but he definitely dominated the Chester May festival, landing all five of the meeting's black-type races, three of which were Derby and Oaks trials.