JUST WHAT IS CHAMPIONS DAY?

Rolf Johnson scratches his head about the summer game's flat finale

- Rolf Johnson

Bedlam on QIPCO Champions Day, fomented by the only true champion on view but one who hasn’t held the jockey’s title since 2004 and never (never say never about Frankie Dettori!) will again.

Defining what is or isn’t a ‘champions day’ is problematical. Big Rock’s astounding victory in the Queen Elizabeth II had shades of Frankel but the French colt back home was no match for the uncontested, world-class, Ace Impact too valuable to be risked at Ascot and retired to stud.

The whole concept of Champions Day depended on Frankie (like Lester, there’s only one Frankie) performing. When he is no longer around – which may or may not be next year - those who find the whole shebang a dubious distraction may want to resurrect another ‘FD’.

Fred Dibnah (he died in 2006) was a steeplejack with a Bolton accent straight out of Coronation Street and playing on it Fred found television fame in the 1970s and 80s blowing up redundant Industrial Revolution chimneys and dark, derelict ‘satanic’ mills. Anything more modernistic than Bolton Town Hall (1860) was fair game for demolition: the Ascot Grandstand itself might have trembled had he, greasy overalls and oily flat cap, cast his baleful eye and impudent grin over the edifice.

But the roof nearly came off of its own accord when Frankie steered home his ‘last ride’, King of Steel. The Ascot faithful belted out “There’s only one Frankie Dettori” as raucously as the Old Trafford faithful ever did for Eric Cantona. As was the wont of the irresistible Frenchman, the irreplaceable Italian blew a gale of kisses to rapturous fans - but were they those of a departing lover promising to return?