Whoosh! Gemili draws gasps as he takes on Battaash in central London

Jesse Owens may have won four gold medals and doused Hitler's Aryan rhetoric at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, but his victory over racism did not travel back with him across the Atlantic and he had to put on shows in which he raced horses to put food on the table.

And so the concept of man versus horse took off. To give himself a fighting chance, Owens would try to turn the contests in his favour by selecting a highly strung colt he hoped would be spooked by the starter's shotgun.

But for Adam Gemili that was not an option. The horse he had to take on was Battaash, one of the fastest sprinters in the world, and as this promotion for Qipco British Champions Day is taking place in central London on a busy Thursday, Charlie Hills's stable star is being represented by some lights. No slow starts here; light is famously fast.