So. Pick up your toys and clean your rooms, assorted horse-racing commentators - professional and amateur. Aren't we a little old to still be having this discussion?
The oddest thing that circulated in the aftermath of the Queen Anne Stakes flop by Able Friend - and, yes, perhaps we are giving too much oxygen to the real-time brain fades that pass as "opinion" on social media - was that Big Red's failure to perform was somehow a commentary on the worth of Hong Kong form.
You know A and B doesn't necessarily mean C every time. Right? You know that?
It's a very old-fashioned notion of fans, handicappers, call them what you will, that you can draw an absolute line between where Whosamaycallit finished relative to Whatsisname and where both of them finished when they raced against Youknowwho and, as a result, work out who wins the next race. It's Stone Age stuff, right up there with claiming a wife by hitting her with a club. (No, not hitting on her in a club, with a club. Stay focused.)
So to those who believe Able Friend's David Copperfield trick of disappearing before our very eyes at Royal Ascot places him nine lengths behind Solow in real life, keep your day job.
There are good arguments that Able Friend had had enough, or was overcome by the occasion, the travel, or many other things, but to suggest that his failure was somehow preordained by and proof of Hong Kong form being substandard is foolish.
As we noted in this space after the decision to go to England, what we were going to get with Able Friend in a new environment was a complete unknown. The horse had never even been on a float to Happy Valley in his two years here, and Ascot was somewhat more ambitious.
Anyone watching the pre-race coverage surely knew it was going to end badly for Able Friend, when he was unsettled, agitated and lathered up - all things he would never normally be. In that regard, he was no different to some other notable Hong Kong failures overseas, including Sacred Kingdom at Ascot or Ambitious Dragon in Dubai, who were so out of character pre-race that their only identifying characteristic was their brand.
And we see them every December at Sha Tin - visiting horses with great talent and big reputations who fail. They come from everywhere - Europe, Britain, Ireland, Australia, Japan, Dubai, even the USA.
They don't fail because horses here are superior, but because they are all horses and the away team is always at a disadvantage. It's why the dream of a Formula One international series has never worked and never will - not turning up happens much more frequently than turning up.
Here are just a few big names from memory, without even trying hard: Rakti, Moonlight Cloud, Grandera, dear old Cirrus des Aigles, Dylan Thomas and almost anything else that ever came here off a good run in the Arc. No-shows, all of them.
They're horses and failure is unremarkable. The remarkable cases are the ones who thrive on the travel and produce their best wherever they go, and they are only slightly less rare than chickens with lips.
It's nothing to do with the form guide.
Next season's jockey line-up may not yet be set in stone
Announcements by the Jockey Club's Licensing Committee, especially at this stage of the season, tend to have a real air of finality about them, but that was not the case last week.
It's usually: here are the jockeys' licences - break out the new names - and there is your assistant trainer list, and those trainers still short of the required numbers lift your game, done.
But, after last week's licensing meeting, we had two jockeys facing show cause hearings, which will decide whether we have 19, 20 or 21 licensed riders for opening day.
Nineteen is probably at least one too few, prompting trainer Danny Shum Chap-shing to make a plea for Andreas Suborics to get his licence back. Talk is that Suborics is somehow appealing over the decision not to licence him, which may well be a first if it happens.
Then there's the absence of any mention of a trainer applying to engage a stable-retained rider, although we have been assured such application can be made at any time. Which is just as well because there is widespread talk that one of those is currently being negotiated for an upper- to mid-table yard.
So perhaps the make-up of the jockeys to begin the 2015-16 season is not quite so set in stone as it would normally be.
No reason for C+3 at season's end
We can't think of any reason for this Wednesday's C+3 rail torture at Happy Valley other than force of habit, but hopefully the rain will set in and give it a proper soaking and soften the blow of the widest rail position.
Seriously, C+3 at Happy Valley with two meetings left in the season? We are saving the better parts of the track for ... ?
So many trainers and owners lose interest in winning when they get the wrong draw on the C+3 that it becomes an excuse to get some handicap relief. That strikes at integrity; there isn't anything stewards or officials can do about it and there should simply be as few C+3s at the Valley as possible.
The racing could have been on the A course, with the B track, which many believe to be the best course setting of all, for the final meeting of the season there on July 8.
Especially at this time of year, with the cliffhanger in the trainers' championship, we want the racing to be as legitimate and inclusive as possible.
While on the trainers' championship, we've once again received some emails from readers wondering why the Jockey Club doesn't offer fixed-odds betting on the title.
There does seem to be some customer interest out there, but we suspect the club's Jockey Challenge toe in the fixed-odds pond has probably sated its desire for that end of the market, despite occasional mutterings about ante-post operations for HKIR or the Derby. In the club's defence, there's probably some regulatory ring-pull can of worms just waiting to be opened when it comes to bets where the club has to hold punters' money for months at a time.
