IT is always difficult to evaluate a situation without having full information, but, given the information that we have, it was difficult not to feel for Luca Cumani when the news came through on Wednesday evening that Sheikh Mohammed Obaid Al Maktoum would move all his horses from him and transfer them to Roger Varian.

All 23 of them? Thirty-five, said Cumani, in a refreshingly candid and magnanimous interview on Racing UK on Thursday.

Cumani and Sheikh Obaid go way back. It was in 1998 that they won the Derby together with High-Rise. Remember? The first hyphenated Derby winner since Sea-Bird?

They won the Royal Whip Stakes together in 1999 with Zomaradah, who had won the Italian Oaks in 1998.They won a Lancashire Oaks with Emirates Queen and they won a Celebration Mile with Afsare.

And just this month, they teamed up to win the Bospherous Cup in Turkey with Connecticut and, of course, they won the Prix Foy on Sunday with Postponed, with whom they had won the King George, and who was and presumably still is on track for the Arc.

You wonder what changed, because Sheikh Obaid has horses in training with no other trainer in Britain at present. It’s a fickle old business.