'If you have my background, it can be impossible to imagine yourself in racing'

Racing's official records would have you believe she did not exist. In the form book there is not a single reference to the race she won, as if it never even happened. But it did happen, she did win and history was made. Khadijah Mellah was and is a history maker.

Her moment in the Sussex sun came this very week last year. The setting was Goodwood, where during the track's signature festival there was a double dose of Group 1 glory for the world's most celebrated jockey and a famous Japanese triumph.

Yet for all that we applauded Dettori and Deirdre, it was through a charity dash staged outside the normal rules of racing that the sport broke through its traditional confines to make headlines far and wide. The turf's new heroine was a teenager in a Nike hijab.