ONE horse who will not be lining up at any festival this year is Don Cossack whose retirement was announced this week. It is hard luck for any owner to have to retire a Gold Cup winner or a Grand National winner within a year of their great achievements let alone two in the same period. I hope that the illustrious residents of the retirement paddock at Gigginstown are in full view of their owner as his famous taxi heads on its way each morning.

On the subject of great racehorses, I was amused when Donald Trump’s victory speech referred, in the context of being a fellow winner, to the legendary Triple Crown winner Secretariat. I wonder if Mr Trump realised that Secretariat’s second career, as a stallion, failed to reproduce the success of his first. Not that I expect he cares that much.

Having said that, Trump’s own breeding-shed antics were under the spotlight this week. He understandably ruffles plenty of feathers but I cannot understand the indignation that surrounded his refusal this week to engage with CNN, most of it from fellow members of the media.

It was not seen as evidence of obvious shortcomings in 2011 when Alex Ferguson refused to allow Sky cameras into his weekly press briefings at Manchester United after they showed him saying something when he thought the microphone was turned off.

The same legendary manager had already refused to speak to the BBC for seven years after they did not apologise for a 2004 documentary about Ferguson and his son Jason. How would Sir Alex have engaged with a news organisation that ran a story about alleged trysts with Russian prostitutes - at best a gross invasion of privacy, at worst a complete fabrication?

Trump deflected the story by announcing that he is a germaphobe. He had then apparently moved close to melt down after seeing somebody double-dipping a canapé at a reception he was attending. You could not make it up.

If a sucked carrot stick revisiting the Marie Rose sauce had that effect, what did anybody expect from the latest allegations?

I heard one commentator remark, “it will all come out in the wash” and Mr Trump will hope that nobody recorded the housekeeping team at the Russian hotel saying the same thing.