For the memories, we have to say a big thank you.

To Sea The Stars for his magnificent season and to Ditto Zenyatta, a remarkable mare who showed Europe the way forward by racing for three unbroken seasons.

In that vein we must warmly welcome the decision to keep Rip Van Winkle in training. A ready-made stallion prospect after his Sussex and QEII Stakes victories, it says much about Ballydoyle’s faith in him that he returns in 2010. A spell out at grass will do wonders for the brittle hooves that effectively forced him to race on flat tyres this year.

Here in Britain, we constantly bemoan the loss of our best three-year-olds to stud. Yet what do we do about it? Very little - as a glance at 2009’s leading earners will confirm.

Have a think about this: how many of the top 12 earners in Britain and Ireland this year were older horses? Six, perhaps? Four in a bad year?

Not even close. The answer is one: the King George winner, Conduit.

The likes of Ask, Dar Re Mi, Fleeting Spirit, Paco Boy and Twice Over - all of them Group 1 winners - received scant reward for their efforts. Meanwhile, Sea The Stars, Fame And Glory, Mastercraftsman, Sariska, Rip Van Winkle and Golden Sword – yes, Golden Sword – were three-year-olds that all earned more.

And how about this for a bit of slapstick? Comfortably inside the top ten is the two-year-old quartet comprising Lucky General, Shakespearean, Lillie Langtry and Oasis Dancer. By their victories in the Goffs sales races, Lucky General and Shakespearean became equine millionaires. They each earned almost twice as much as Conduit.

So loaded are the dice that it’s madness to expect connections of top-class three-year-olds to keep them in training. In the prize-money context, there’s precious little to gain and very much to lose.

Such radical imbalances demand radical solutions. Two spring to mind.

The first is to abolish the allowance that sees three-year-olds receive lumps of weight from older horses to compensate for their physical immaturity.

The point is not to question that immaturity, which plainly exists, but to dissuade owners from racing three-year-olds against their elders in the first place. They would have to do so on disadvantageous terms.

The second solution is to prevent three-year-olds from running against their elders at all. They could race exclusively among themselves, for significantly reduced prize-money, until they competed for greater riches at four.

As things stand, the racing and breeding industries interact with one another with no concern for the spectator, who is being short-changed. No wonder racing’s client base is eroding.