THE truth is that when jockeys get plaudits for stealing races from the front there is usually a degree to which at least some of their rivals were guilty of allowing it to happen. That was the case with James McDonald’s daylight heist on Big Orange in the Princess of Wales’s Stakes at Newmarket recently.

That may also have been true of Ryan Moore’s masterclass on Highland Reel in Saturday’s King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot, but to a lesser degree.