The apparent acceptance by the stewards of Sunday's tactics on Ambitious Dragon had more eyebrow-raising potential than the love child of Salvador Dali and Marty Feldman.
For some time, stewards have been keen to go through replays with jockeys and advise them on the need to avoid unnecessarily covering extra ground.
Some rival jockeys have suggested Maxime Guyon's public popularity might have made him a koala - a protected species - but that is not true as he was chipped by the stewards earlier on Sunday for sitting wide on the untalented Lucky Nistelrooy.
That Guyon chose not to make further use of this one-dimensional fellow in the middle stages after pressing forward early was not surprising, but Ambitious Dragon is a different subject and his ride was difficult to comprehend.
At one stage, Ambitious Dragon was a 1.2 favourite, meaning almost 70 per cent of bets on the win pool were on the reigning Horse of the Year. Thus, it was of significant interest for punters to at least have an explanation for why the ride was undertaken in the manner it was.
There may have been anticipation of a modest pace and some unreasonably optimistic pre-race plan to begin better than usual from the awkward gate and find a handier trail two wide - that can't be blamed on Guyon, whose knowledge of the styles of his opposition runners is likely minimal - but it would have been a knuckleheaded idea at best. Trainer Tony Millard himself seemed to pour cold water on this, when he excused the defeat by saying the horse was closer than usual and that it didn't suit.