SO it was not to be for Enable, whose bid for an historic third Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe foundered at the very end of a race that few who watched from afar, and none of the tens of thousands there on course, are likely to forget.

The roar which erupted as she hit the front and took a length or two out of her rivals between the 400-metre and the 200-metre markers was unlike anything I have heard on a racecourse but soon turned into groans of disbelief as Waldgeist ran her down.