Why Sir Michael Stoute was a big winner on Saturday, eight months after the legendary trainer decided to call it a day

Super Saturday was another chance to celebrate the work of the great Sir Michael Stoute, some eight months after his retirement. That's because the winners of the Summer Mile at Ascot, the Bunbury Cup at Newmarket and the John Smith's Cup at York had one notable feature in common – they were all graduates of his academy.

If he was still training Never So Brave, More Thunder and Fox Legacy, that hat-trick of big-race victories would have been a really excellent high point for a farewell season. The winners, all four-year-olds, would have been hailed as "typical Sir Michael improvers", one of racing's more enjoyable cliches.

As it was, the trio are now with a couple of different trainers and represent a couple of different owners, so the connection may have been overlooked. Hopefully, William Haggas and Andrew Balding are appropriately grateful to the master who did so much of the preparatory work for Saturday's glories.