BILLY THE COOL, HAD TO BE SEEN, CALLUM COCK-UP, PACEMAKERS!, FIRST ARABIAN & GIMCRACK.

Billy 'the kid' Loughnane going forward should be referred to as 'Billy the Cool'. His ride yesterday on Libertango was not the ride of a twenty-year-old but the ride of long-established rider of multiple major winners. Poorly drawn, wide of his main adversaries, 'Billy the Cool' took a pull coming out of the stalls, edged his way across the course until he had Dylan Browne McMonagle in his sights and proceeded to plunder the spoils with the authority of a Ryan Moore look-a-like. Great ride; already a great jockey. The Legend of Billy the Cool is already taking shape.

Of course, there is only one Ryan Moore. Loughnane may be the future but Moore remains the present. His ride yesterday in the sales race was a masterclass of keep calm, keep winning. Out the back in a twenty-runner field, scrubbing along, looking here, there and everywhere for space to appear, balked and nearly bundled over, he was all but out with the washing at the two-furlong pole. Many a jockey on a red-hot favourite would have panicked and got into a barging match to find room, some might have given up and rode for another day. Not Ryan Moore. He finally found daylight and like a cork flying from the champagne bottle to failed to out-run at Ascot, Sun Goddess flew for home, winning by a long distance impossible to visualise a few seconds before.

I realise that Ed Chamberlain is employed to stir the pot when the programme is in need of a story but how could Checkandchallenge be considered for the non-runner rule when all that happened was Callum Shepherd failed to pull off the blinds first or even second time. It was jockey error. If horses were declared a non-runner due to jockey error bookmakers would spend half their working day handing out refunds.

I was wise in declaring against pace-makers. Sugar Island, yesterday, was a perfect example of how not to use a pace-maker. Also, pace-makers, especially those deployed by Ballydoyle, ruin more races than they help. It is possible Whelan went far too fast on Sugar Island and will never be employed by Ballydoyle ever again or the plan was to mess the race up in order to create confusion, with only Ryan Moore knowing what the hell was going on. Sugar Island was not run on her merits and any punter optimistic enough to have backed her have a claim to have their bet refunded as she had no chance of winning the way she was ridden. Checkandchallenge had more chance of winning after being left in the stalls than Sugar Island had going at it like she or her team-mate were attempting to break a world record.

Now, a little light relief from the past. The first Arabian horses to arrive in Britain was a lot earlier than the history books record. It was not the Darley, Godolphin or the other Arabian stallion that were first of their kind to land their hooves on British soil but the Arabian horses the Romans brought to Britain as entertainment for their bored legions in barracks up in the North of England. Organised horse racing was also brought to Britain by the Romans. As was team racing. Yes, the racing was organised around teams, often only known by the colour of the ribbons that adorned bridles. Nothing new under the sun, as is sometimes still heard.

Today, the Gimcrack Stakes is run at York. Who was Gimcrack, you might ask? He was a grey horse of only 14-hands. He won 27 of his 35-races, though never at York surprisingly. He changed hands five-times in his long career and when stabled in France his then owner backed him heavily to gallop 22+ miles in under an hour. Which he achieved with minutes to spare. Gimcrack is remembered in art, in the race still run in his name and by the Ancient Fraternite of Ye Gimcracks.