A night of misery for the European challenge in the Breeders’ Cup in Monmouth Park ended in tragedy for one of its most charismatic champions. Shortly after finishing down the field for the second successive year in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, the richest and most prestigious race in a meeting billed as the thoroughbred world championships, George Washington had to be put down.

He was found to have a compound fracture of the cannon bone and although his owners and trainer, Aidan O’Brien, would have been desperate to save a horse that has brought so much glory, anxiety and joy to Coolmore, the inevitable decision was taken late last night to put the four-year-old out of his pain. Rarely has a night ended in such despair for Coolmore or O’Brien, who had earlier watched Excellent Art narrowly beaten in the Breeders’ Cup Mile and Dylan Thomas, the hottest favourite of the afternoon, finish tired and out of the frame in the Turf.

It was a great night for the home team, but the gloss was taken off their clean sweep by the news of George Washington, who was a star in the US as well as in Europe. Rarely has a horse captured the imagination of the wider public so strongly as the strapping son of Danehill, who burst into the limelight with a captivating performance down the Rowley Mile to win the 2,000 Guineas and advertised his film-star temperament by refusing to walk back into the winners’ enclosure after his victory.

Feet planted firmly on the path back to receive his just acclaim he had to be unsaddled by an embarrassed O’Brien back in the preparade ring. A star was born. From that moment, George Washington became O’Brien’s pet project and although George’s finest hour came on that overcast afternoon in May 2006, the trainer, never one to waste words, rarely missed an opportunity to extol the virtues of his wayward Classic winner. Unusually for the low-profile image of Coolmore, the owners even wore jackets and caps labelled “Gorgeous George” in honour of the horse’s nickname.

George Washington’s victory in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot in the autumn of 2006 was a triumph both for the horse and for O’Brien, who had nurtured him back to health after injury. Mostly, it was a tribute to the Irishman’s ingenuity in persuading George that the race-course was worthy of his attention and his rivals worthy of respect. Like many top athletes, Gorgeous George had a deep arrogance within him that made him a hypnotic draw in the paddock and on the track.

But his career knew as many disappointments as triumphs.

Controversially tried on the dirt for the first time in the Classic a year ago, a shot to nothing for Coolmore, who had already consigned George to stud at the end of his three-year-old career, George Washington hated the whole experience, finishing a lacklustre sixth. But rumours were soon rife in racing that George Washington’s stud career was not going according to plan and they were proved true when Holy Roman Emperor, Coolmore’s top juvenile and another son of Danehill, was whisked off to take up George’s stud duties earlier this year.

O’Brien was then handed the unenviable task of retraining George Washington after his abortive stud career. The return was not quite as choreographed, not quite the fairytale that the script demanded. The old talent was still in evidence, but too often once the race had been settled. He went into last night’s race without a win in his past four races.

Predictably, against the best dirt horses in America on a sloppy track that was hardly in keeping with his usual red carpet, George Washington came under pressure round the home turn and was well beaten early in the straight. Like any Oscar-win-ning film star, George Washington would have liked to have presented a better, less bedraggled, profile to the camera on his final outing. He will, however, leave racegoers on this side of the Atlantic with some prodigious memories and real joy at his quirky genius.

Dylan Thomas would have found the right words, but on the birthday of the great Welsh poet, his namesake was reduced to prosaic ordinariness by the soft ground and a hard season in the Breeders’ Turf, won, at the third attempt, by the American-trained five-year-old, English Channel.

“I was struggling as soon as I hit the back straight,” said Dylan Thomas’s jockey, Johnny Murtagh. Only Red Rocks, the defending champion, was able to show his true form on the rain-softened ground, finishing a gallant third under Frankie Dettori.

It was not an auspicious afternoon for Murtagh, who had to pull up on Simply Perfect in the Filly and Mare Turf after being taken wide off the back bend and came agonisingly close to victory on the fast-closing Excellent Art in the Breeders’ Cup won by the outsider, Kip Deville. Nor could Henry Cecil end his revival season with his first Breeders’ Cup winner, Passage of Time finishing third to the American-trained Lahudood in the Filly and Mare Turf, a race that has become a European banker over the past six years. No joy, only despair, for Coolmore and for Europe.