Racing's ray of sunshine provides sport with its very own miracle

Unlike your correspondent, few of you will be old enough to recall the December day when Jesus was foaled and rubbed down with some straw before being wrapped in swaddling clothes . . . whatever they may be.

Also in the farm outbuilding was the obligatory ox and the usual donkey whose descendants some of us will have backed on Saturday.

Thus originated the first Christmas miracle, and 2020 years on we had another when Frodon and Bryony Frost landed our beloved King George in front of a smaller crowd at Kempton than the one that rammed the stable all those years ago.