IN a week dominated by one tragic story, all the other nonsense pales into insignificance, but while I didn’t know Pat Smullen, I’m far from alone in feeling an acute sadness at his passing. In a world which feels more factional, pettier, more flint-hearted than ever, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that some people are a force for good, and Pat Smullen was self-evidently in that mould.

Talking to people within my circle who, like me, did not know him in any personal capacity, it’s remarkable how many have felt profoundly affected by his death. For those on the periphery of racing, either professionally or as fans of the sport, there can false intimacy, a feeling that you are fully involved in a world which you are, in fact, merely observing, and it’s easy enough to attribute the feeling of grief to that phenomenon, but there is something else there, too.