A symbolic day as Gordon Elliott shines while Willie Mullins toils

It’s been less than a week since a 26ft statue of Pharoah Ramses II, or Ozymandias as the Greeks liked to call him, was rescued from its ignoble resting place beneath a suburban Cairo slum and surrounded by dirty, running water.

The irony was lost on no-one.

The find was just another reminder that the ravages of time conquer all: Even the most imposing of rulers and empires.