If there was a quibble about the class of this King George field, there could be no question mark over the guts, courage or brilliance of the winner, Duke Of Marmalade, yesterday. For just a moment, as Papal Bull locked horns with the hot favourite at the furlong marker and the pair drew lengths clear of the rest of the field, memories were drawn back to the legendary duel between Grundy and Bustino all those years ago.

Yet Papal Bull, well though he battled, is no Bustino and the Duke, though winning his fourth successive – but most prestigious – Group One race of the season is no Grundy. The struggle down the straight was not quite as protracted as that of Grundy and Bustino, but for more than a second or two, as Olivier Peslier produced his mount with what seemed like a decisive flourish, the crowd sensed a real upset.

So too did the exchange punters, who backed Papal Bull down to 10/1 on in running over the final stages of an epic encounter.

Michael Stoute too must have thought that the spoils were his, snatched right from under the nose of the trainer he calls “little Aidan” O’Brien. But it was not to be. If there was a potential chink in the Duke’s armour it was his stamina over the stiff mile and a half at Ascot. That must have been at the heart of the plans laid out by Stoute for both Peslier, recruited to ride Papal Bull, and for Ryan Moore, who chose to ride the more fancied Ask in his first King George. So much for perception.

Once headed by the 14/1 shot, Duke Of Marmalade responded to the insult with a champion’s heart. Under the strongest driving from the peerless Johnny Murtagh, the pair did not just sweep back up the rail to head Papal Bull on the line, they won quite cosily in the end.

Rarely are tables turned so quickly in such circumstances. The Duke was just kidding. “When he gets to the front, he’s just a bit lazy,” explained O’Brien. “We gave him a break ready for the second half of the season and because he does nothing in front, he’s a hard horse to assess. But he’s a marvellous horse.” Murtagh, who has never ridden better in his life, went a step further than his trainer. “He’s one of my favourites, this horse, and one of the best I’ve ever ridden,” said the Irishman, who was riding his third King George winner after Alamshar in 2003 and Dylan Thomas a year ago.

Jockeys are drawn into hyperbole in the heat of the moment, but there was some ring of credibility to the claim. For the record – and a few might be broken by the winter – this was O’Brien’s 14th European Group One of the season, the 12th to be ridden by Murtagh.

The obvious merit of the winner served to disguise the paucity of talent in the eight-strong field. The big guns were represented, with three runners from Coolmore and two from Freemason Lodge, but the absence of any representatives of the Classic generation, let alone one of the Classic winners, was certainly a cause for concern to the Ascot authorities and to the British Horseracing Authority.

Henrythenavigator, a brilliant miler, had the most obvious excuse, but the pick of the other three-year-olds, the Derby winner, New Approach, Casual Conquest and Curtain Call have all bypassed the race for varying reasons. Time does not stand still and the attraction of major international prizes in the autumn has shifted attention away from one of the crown jewels of the English racing summer.

In accordance with their strategy in recent seasons, Coolmore fielded their trio, leaving nothing to chance over the testing 10 furlongs. Coolmore’s race tactics this season have come close enough to turning a very individual sport into a team relay, but legitimately so in the eyes of the authorities on both sides of the Irish Sea. Meticulous planning has always been one of O’Brien’s great strengths, but he didn’t really have to bother with the chalk and blackboard to imagine the pattern of yesterday’s race.

Murtagh had the Duke well placed on the outside to avoid trouble once the pacemaker, Red Rock Canyon, had dropped away on the rail where, not for the first time, Youmzain was caught in a pocket under Richard Hughes. By the time Hughes had pulled away from the trouble, the race was gone and only third place was in dispute. Murtagh, sensing the right time to move and the power of the horse beneath him, rushed into the lead.

Behind him, Peslier followed in his slipstream, poised to strike. After narrowing the gap between him and the leader, Papal Bull surged into the lead and Peslier must have thought another big English race was his for the taking, while, from a discreet distance, Moore must have watched with growing frustration as Ask, his chosen mount, floundered in the pack along with the disappointing Lucarno and Macarthur, Coolmore’s second string.

Before the race, Peslier had talked of Papal Bull being a tough horse, a good horse as long as he is right in the mind, which was a slight understatement. The Frenchman kidded, cajoled and coaxed Papal Bull towards his destiny. It was no disgrace that, yesterday, they found a horse, trainer and jockey at the height of their powers.

14
The number of Group One winners trained by Aidan O’Brien this season. Johnny Murtagh has ridden 12 of them including four winners at this year’s Royal Ascot – Haradasun, Henrythenavigator, Yeats and Duke of Marmalade, who won again yesterday