Last week the French Champion Treve (40) suffered the same fate in the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot. She reportedly went down scratchily to the start, shifted her ground in the race and ran below form to finish third.

It must be a source of embarrassment to the staff at Ascot and Chantilly that they ended up producing ground hard enough to cause problems for top class horses when they had modern watering systems, penetrometers and going sticks at their disposal. But their failure is not uncommon and suggests that some in-depth research into watering policy by the BHA, France Galop and others would pay dividends.