ONCE A Group 1 contest, the Oaks d’Italia was downgraded to Group 2 in 2007. Then a target for all the leading European trainers, it was won since 1985 by fillies trained by Jim Bolger, twice each by Michael Stoute and Luca Cumani, Barry Hills, André Fabre, and more, even by Lester Piggott. More recently the challenge to local runners has largely come, and very successfully too, from Germany.

This year two race records were cemented. Victorious jockey Fabio Branca won the race for the fifth time, and four of these were for Stefano Botti, who himself was taking the honours for the sixth time. The winner this year the Irish-bred Piccolo Piumo, a daughter of Saxon Warrior (Deep Impact). When I saw the name of the breeder, Suroben Limited, my first thought, as a crossword fan, was that it was an anagram, and it looked a little like Osbourne. Wrong number of letters however.