A knobbly jewel in a shaky crown - and none the worse for it

It's not often you can use 'bombshell' in huge capital letters - Alan Partridge saw to that - but it seemed appropriate yesterday. 'Shock'. That was another word often needlessly employed but in keeping here.

Alastair Down might have set out good reasons to laud the scheme to flatten Kempton - but you cannot deal with the King George in six words ("will go to the reborn Sandown").

Surely the King George, on a flat track where what counts are speed, accuracy and class, not slugging it out up a hill, is a necessity for jump racing? It's a highlight that stands apart from the pseudo-narrative of the season, and it used to be even more – you don't have to be a greybeard to recall when the race had kudos to spare over the Gold Cup.