The turf | 2 August 2018

On a foggy November day in 1965 the young son of a Barbadian police chief was one of six contestants tried out in the commentary box at Newbury to find a new BBC television racing correspondent. Peter O’Sullevan had put in a good word for Michael Stoute but on his first sight of jump racing that day he finished runner-up to Julian Wilson, the only one of the applicants who had travelled first class from Paddington. Sir Michael, as he is today (the knighthood awarded for services to Barbados tourism), would have made a fine commentator with his rich voice, knowing smile and appealing chuckle, but it has been to racing’s immense benefit that he then went off instead to Pat Rohan to start training racehorses instead of talking about them.

There has been no more exhilarating sight this season than the prolonged two-furlong duel between the Stoute-trained pair Poet’s Word and Crystal Ocean at the finish of the Qipco-sponsored King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot on Saturday.