THE Shergar Cup might not be for everyone. You could say it distracts away from the main attraction of racing. You could claim the competition lacks real formality. And you could claim you just don’t care about who wins it.

But you cannot argue with just short of 32,000 people through the gate and into racing. For any racing event, that is a huge figure. To put it into context, Qipco Champions Day will do very well to eclipse that figure as the largest attended fixture at Ascot outside of the royal meeting.