IF you were looking for feel-good racing results amid some of gloom over the world, you did not have to look far last Sunday.

For racing tales of intrigue and hatching gambles and touches, few trainers would rival the 74-year-old Sir Mark Prescott. There might have been times in recent years when you thought his days at the top table were numbered. Speedier horses, younger, hungrier trainers, more demanding owners, they might not fit the patient Prescott way.

But in winning the ‘pearl of great prize’, Europe’s greatest race, Alpinista swished her tail at the changing times and made not just her trainer emotional but very many hardened veterans of the sport.

And if Alpinista went out at the top, winning the Arc as a five-year-old, the other end of the spectrum, the flying two-year-old The Platinum Queen raised a cheer or two.

Alpinista and The Platinum Queen will be on the shortlists for the end-of-season awards.

But there are some very deserving performances that won’t get mentioned at those end-of-season ceremonies, but, if we are using contribution to the sport, both from an entertainment, love of the horse view, and engaging interest from a betting perspective, perhaps the race to match the Arc was the Group 3 John Guest Racing Bengough Stakes at Ascot last Saturday, fought out by the season’s handicap kings Rohaan, Summerghand and Commanche Falls.

Between them this year, they have won the Wokingham, Stewards’ Cup, York’s Sky Bet Constantine Handicap (Heritage Handicap), the Ayr Gold Cup, and been regularly placed over the seasons at decent odds in many other races, before competing in this Group 3.

Surely amid all the glitter and high ratings there should be a category for these horses, who have given so much pleasure, in the end-of-season adulations?