Triumph hope East India Dock leads influx of Flat talent and that could usher in another golden age of Champion Hurdles

There is a danger that wallowing in nostalgia can make any sports fan blind to great performances in the here and now. Is there a linguistic or statistical opposite to recency bias?

When you have been watching events unfold for upwards of 40 years, there's an instinct whenever this match or that race is hailed as one for the ages to reach back into the comfort of memory and say: "Oh, yeah? What about Archie Gemmill's dribbling masterclass against the Dutch at the 1978 World Cup? Or Jack Nicklaus charging through the field at Augusta on the final day of the 1986 Masters?"

I'm old enough to remember the tail end of the golden age of Champion Hurdles that ran through the 1970s into the early 1980s, when Sea Pigeon, Night Nurse and Monksfield produced thrilling finish after thrilling finish up the Cheltenham hill. Their hegemony spanned six consecutive festivals and ran straight off the back of dominance of the division by Persian War, Bula and Comedy Of Errors.