HIGHLAND Reel was at it again early on Sunday morning: looking vulnerable in a big race (even the commentator said so), then battling back to win decisively, to land the Hong Kong Vase again. It was a fitting end to the racing career of one of the great racehorses.

His has been an incredible racing career. He won 10 times, seven times at the highest level. He won on seven different tracks and in four different countries and on three different continents, and over all distances between seven furlongs and a mile and a half.

In so doing, he amassed more prize money than any other racehorse trained in Europe has ever amassed. He had already topped the prize money list before he won at Sha Tin on Sunday, so first prize for the Vase of the equivalent of over £1 million just took him to a total that will probably not be bettered in a long time.

He won the Hong Kong Vase in 2015, he finished second in the race in 2016, beaten a neck by Japanese horse Satono Crown, and he went back and won it again this year.

Think of adjectives for Highland Reel and you think, tough, durable, versatile.

But those adjectives should not mask his class. He is a horse who, you feel, has just this year gained the recognition that his talent has deserved.

He has been under-estimated for much of his racing career. That can happen sometimes when a racehorse scales the greatest peaks of his career on international shores, one step removed from the domestic media glare and against opposition whose merits we don’t fully comprehend.

His career was expertly managed by Aidan O’Brien, and the fact that Sunday’s win brought up Group/Grade 1 win number 28 of 2017 for the trainer hardly got a mention in the post-race dispatches.

If the son of Galileo raced on as a six-year-old, he would probably scale more peaks, amass more prize money, add to his Group/Grade 1 tally. But the time has come now for him to retire to stud.

His fee has been set at €17,500. That could under-estimate him too.