A true icon is a rare beast indeed - but brilliant Battaash is more than worthy

Icons are ten a penny these days. Anything halfway decent, in fact pretty much anything at all, has a better than evens chance of being described on the news as iconic, of having the term lazily appended to it by people who wouldn't know an icon if it walked up to them in the street and bit them on the backside.

Battaash is an icon, has been an icon for more than five seasons; I hesitate to use the past tense for obvious reasons. In the iconic blue and white silks of the late Sheikh Hamdan, as a natural if belated successor to the great Dayjur, he has been the essence of excellence on the British sprint scene.

He's not been without his quirks, and there have been plenty of blips along the way, just to keep us guessing, but an icon doesn't have to be flawless, just an undeniable embodiment; in this case, what he has been is the one horse that fills the mind whenever the subject of raw speed on a racecourse comes up in the conversation.