Racing is notoriously poor at savouring the moment, too often getting mired in speculation and hypothesis on what happens next. Events in Doncaster and Dublin on Saturday allowed for no such distraction, and were all the better for it. Sir Michael Stoute won the St Leger at last and Aidan O'Brien made history. Nothing else mattered.

Well, maybe that's not quite true, for the release of Stoute from his 34-year purgatory was achieved by liaison with a man who does not take a back seat on such occasions. Frankie Dettori rode Conduit with icy judgment to win his fifth Ladbrokes St Leger, then melted into knockabout celebrations, even subjecting the startled knight to several hugs, a turn wearing the famously silly Leger cap and a sloppy Italian kiss.

The crowd - at 27,000, stirring vindication of the public affinity with this often neglected classic - loved it all and Stoute bore his indignities with a fixed beam, his greatest relief doubtless being that the annual inquisitions on his Leger record must now end. It was a memorably happy scene for the most respected of British trainers and the finest public ambassador ever to come out of the jockeys' room.

And not before time, it may be said, in more ways than one. It was not just Stoute's breakthrough, after 25 Leger losers, that was overdue but also a British victory at top level in a fallow summer. Other than the Oaks win of Look Here, who again ran admirably here in third, this was the first British classic success of 2008.

The man largely responsible for the famine was in unaccustomed territory among the also-rans at Doncaster. O'Brien fielded five runners, including Frozen Fire, the 9-4 favourite, but none ran as well as his 200-1 pacemaker, Hindu Kush, in fourth.

It probably made the great man think he was in the wrong place. Instead of admiring the Stoute and Dettori show on Town Moor, he could have been back home on the Curragh, where he became only the second trainer - and the first since Jack Rogers in 1935 - to complete a clean sweep of all five Irish classics in a season.

True, it would have been a staggering upset if he had fallen at the last, with the choice of the two finest stayers in these islands to aim at the all-aged anomaly that is the Irish Leger.Discarding Yeats, at the expense of an unforgiving fine, O'Brien sent out Septimus to do the job at odds of 1-3.

This, though, successfully closed another chapter in the extraordinary story of O'Brien at Ballydoyle. Shame on those who scoff that it is only because he has all the best horses - to study the man is to recognise an obsessively driven, highly skilled but immensely caring human being who puts himself through a wringer every day for the sake of Coolmore's continued prosperity. No man is irreplaceable but O'Brien comes close.

His nineteenth group one winner of the year meant that he had won the five classics with five different horses. Septimus did his stuff without breaking sweat and his 13-length annihilation of inferiors has reinforced the will of his connections to point him at one of the few great races to elude them so far, the Melbourne Cup.

Weight and quarantine issues remain of some concern but O'Brien is positive. “If everything falls into place, we'd love to go. The quarantine situation is almost sorted out and we'll talk early in the week and make plans.” Septimus might pick up a minor penalty but he is now as low as 6-1 for Australia's showstopping event.

Conduit is finished until next year, when Melbourne might even be on his agenda. Meanwhile, the one caveat in Stoute's high humour came with mention of his stable jockey. Ryan Moore had chosen wrong, opting to ride Doctor Fremantle. His wait for a classic win goes on. Stoute knows just how he feels.