These are the ones to watch in the Prix de l’Abbaye and the Derby

Rightly, the authorities are doing all they can to find and discipline the disgruntled racegoer who threw a beer can at the champion jump jockey Tony McCoy after a recent contest at Worcester. McCoy, of course, as well as being the straightest man riding, is a teetotaller. But I couldn’t help thinking of the response when the then English women’s cricket captain Rachael Heyhoe Flint was asked about riotous crowds in the West Indies. She replied, ‘If the crowd throw bottles at us we’ll throw them back—unless of course they are full.’

Newmarket’s sunny Cambridgeshire meeting on Saturday was combined with a beer festival but there were no untoward incidents, just a wonderful holiday mood exploited by the relentlessly cheerful commentator Derek Thompson. Amid the celebrations after Marcus Tregoning’s Bronze Angel won the feature race, one elegant lady emerged from the stands to kneel down on the tarmac, bow her head to the ground and fervently cross herself. Shortly afterwards, I encountered her in the winner’s enclosure accompanying the sister of the absent owner Lady Tennant. ‘I came all the way from America for that,’ she said. ‘And, yes, I did have a good bet.’

If she was crossing herself I was kicking myself. Bronze Angel owes me nearly as much as I owe the bank because I only seem to back him on the days he loses and I only held off from backing him again because I thought it would take too much luck in a 31-runner race to repeat his Cambridgeshire victory of 2012. I ended up backing two, Niceofyoutotellme and Velox, who dead-heated for second place. Both are suited to these fast-run races in big fields and are worth keeping on the list.

Despite failing to back Bronze Angel, I was delighted with his victory because Marcus is one of the true gentlemen of the tracks: not just because he wears a trilby as elegantly as John Gosden does but on account of his unfailing courtesy in victory and grace in  defeat.