His full-brother Noble Mission (40) has certainly corrected that family omission this season. 

Apart from one photo-finish loss and a half-length defeat last Sunday Noble Mission would now have won group races in four different countries on his last four starts, three of them Group 1s.

His latest effort was in the Group 1 Grosser Dallmayr-Preis - Bayerisches Zuchtrennen over 10 furlongs in Munich last Sunday.

After having to race wide from his outside draw to move up from seventh to second rounding the first turn, Noble Mission was soon pressing then disputing the lead at a pretty comfortable pace. 

He kicked for home two furlongs out and established a length and a half lead but despite keeping on strongly he was run down by the winner Lucky Lion.

I timed the last two furlongs at 24.2 seconds and the last half furlong at six seconds flat. So clearly Noble Mission was not stopping. He was simply outrun by a superior horse.

Last time out at Saint-Cloud, Noble Mission tired dramatically in the final furlong despite having been allowed to set a moderate pace up front. It’s clear the mile and a half of that race was just a bit too much for him, except around a tight course.

Now that his connections have found the right way to ride him and his optimum distance Noble Mission is running one big race after another. It makes sense to have a shot at the Irish Champion Stakes. I’d also like to see him go for the Breeders’ Cup Turf. 

His terrific record around tight tracks makes the race look an attractive proposition. The downhill turf course at Santa Anita, the tight turns and the generally slow early pace of US turf racing would give him every chance of lasting the mile and a half. 

His owner, Khalid Abdullah, has another obvious candidate for the race in Flintshire but there’s no reason he can’t run them both.

The winner Lucky Lion (40) moved up to fourth rounding the home turn then came with a wet sail to run down Noble Mission after he’d kicked clear. He’s an athletic, well-balanced sort who looks more like a mile to 10-furlong horse that a 12-furlong performer. 

His dam was a sprinter so I’m thinking the mile and a half of the German Derby probably stretched his stamina. He ran second to the superstar Sea The Moon in that race but has now won the other four times that he’s run beyond sprint distances over shorter trips.

Lucky Lion was still moving strongly crossing the line and had so much more pace than the runner-up his jockey looked confident about beating him from some way out.

There are no other Group 1s in Germany over shorter than a mile and a half. Next up for Lucky Lion may be a visit to Deauville in France for the Group 2 Guillame d’Ornano.

German trainers tend to keep the top three-year-olds out of big foreign races against older horses. Most likely Lucky Lion is a horse who will be making the big headlines next year rather than this. 

However the Quipco Champion Stakes at Newmarket does look a rather obvious option, so I’ll be interested to see if he gets entered for that (his trainer now suggests he will be). 

The other obvious race for him would be the Prix Dollar where he could exploit a fitness edge over Cirrus Des Aigles in his comeback run.