'His tally of 30 successes is reminiscent of the dominance of his sire' - Tony Morris's take on the 2023 European Pattern

The St Leger Italiano in Milan on November 18 brought down the curtain on the 53rd European Pattern programme, which consisted of 417 races, 84 in Group 1, 106 in Group 2 and 227 in Group 3.

The number of individual winners – 324 – matched the largest on record, set in 2018.

I have remarked here before about the illogical growth of the scheme since the last year of the 20th century, when there were 319 races and 244 individual winners. Nobody could reasonably argue that so many more horses have warranted recognition of higher status over the period.