These are the ones to watch in the Prix de l’Abbaye and the Derby

Rightly, the authorities are doing all they can to find and discipline the disgruntled racegoer who threw a beer can at the champion jump jockey Tony McCoy after a recent contest at Worcester. McCoy, of course, as well as being the straightest man riding, is a teetotaller. But I couldn’t help thinking of the response when the then English women’s cricket captain Rachael Heyhoe Flint was asked about riotous crowds in the West Indies. She replied, ‘If the crowd throw bottles at us we’ll throw them back—unless of course they are full.’

Newmarket’s sunny Cambridgeshire meeting on Saturday was combined with a beer festival but there were no untoward incidents, just a wonderful holiday mood exploited by the relentlessly cheerful commentator Derek Thompson. Amid the celebrations after Marcus Tregoning’s Bronze Angel won the feature race, one elegant lady emerged from the stands to kneel down on the tarmac, bow her head to the ground and fervently cross herself.