Usually, given it is such a rare event, about as often as a named comet appearing in the sky, when a jockey rides six-winners at one meeting, it is granted a fanfare, heralded as the achievement it is, with headlines in The Racing Post. Yet Wayne Lordan's six-timer at Leopardstown on Saturday received little or no coverage in our trade newspaper. Even if all six winners were on horses trained by Aidan O'Brien, it was still an achievement worthy of celebration. Lordan is top-class, obviously, he would not be riding the best of the Ballydoyle horses if he were only average, yet he is very much second-jockey at Ballydoyle, perhaps even third given how many times Christophe Soumillon is given preference over him, yet we hear not one modicum of dissent from him. When Ryan Moore retires, Lordan will not be favourite to obtain the top job and will doubtless remain a key number two until the day he himself retires. But he has a six-timer on his c.v,; has Ryan ever achieved a six-timer?

The promoting of Ombudsman as a stallion has already begun. Godolphin's managing director, Hugh Anderson, is quoted in The Racing Post today that Ombudsman 'is in the pantheon of the greats'. In that pantheon are such horses as Frankel, Brigadier Gerard and Mill Reef, horses that won classics and races over varying distances. Does Ombudsman deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as those horses, and others?

As it is with other great horses that I would not classify as being of 'pantheon rank', the nine-month wonder Sea The Stars and other one-season wonders like Dancing Brave and Nijinsky, what Ombudsman has proved is his soundness and his ability to win top-class races for more than one season and in that I rank him very highly. I applaud Godolphin for keeping him in training into his full maturity, something more cowardly owners seldom copy. But he is a 10-furlong specialist, though I hope, if given the chance, he might prove me wrong if it is decided to try him over 12-furlongs in the Breeders Cup in a fortnight. For me, horses that warrant inclusion in the highest rank in the history of the sport should have proved themselves unbeatable or very nearly so and able to win over varying distances and on differing ground conditions. So, in my eyes, Ombudsman falls short. A magnificent racehorse nonetheless.

A bit of a xenophobe that I am, I have my fingers crossed that Nicky Henderson will have a change of heart and run Constitution Hill in the St. Simon Stakes at Newbury on Saturday and not travel him to Italy on Sunday for the Gran Premio del Jockey Club. The latter is a Group 2, while the former is only a Group 3. Nicky, no doubt beaten by circumstance, has made life more difficult for both himself and the horse by running in the September Stakes at Kempton, rather than going down the route of handicaps. In Italy, the opposition will include horses that ran in the Arc, while at Newbury there should be no Group 1 opposition, though White Birch is expected to resume his comeback in the race. I just hope the prospect of bringing a few cases of Italian red back with him does not seduce Nicky into a trip to Italy.

A while back, at one of the Sunday Series race-meetings, Luke Harvey had an amusing conversation with a female apprentice outside of the weighing room. Harvey asked her about a ride she had the previous day for her father when things rather publicly did not go to plan. She said in reply that although on meeting-up with her father after the race that he did not mention the incident, his face was saying everything that was going around in his mind. It was a memorable quote and one of Harvey's more memorable interviews. (He had a lovely conversation at the start with Saffie Osborne at Ascot on Saturday) Anyway, that female apprentice was Mia Nicholls, sister of Jack, Group 1 winning apprentice, and daughter of Adrian Nicholls, son of the late Dandy Nicholls.

I have often wondered what became of Mia Nicholls, given her absence from British racecourses for two-years now. I found out today in The Racing Post that like so many young female jockeys who found it hard graft to gain a foothold over here, she removed herself to the U.S., where apparently she is riding winners and has just relocated from Florida to Kentucky in search, as ever, of better opportunities and taken on the recently retired Sophie Doyle as her agent. Being small and light, and with few opportunities for riders like her with the lowest weights in handicaps now up around the eight-and-a-half stone mark, she would doubtless have struggled if she had stayed here. But, as I have said about all jockeys when they either retire out of the sport or go abroad in search of rides, the sport loses their skills. The only positive initiative to help keep these people in our sport would be to increase the number of meetings restricted to what I term the 'journeyman jockeys', those who ride less than thirty-winners a season, for example. The sport in this country needs those journeyman jockeys just as much as it needs Loughnane, Murphy, Moore and Marquand. Those men and women may never be top-of-the-tree jockeys but they are top-of-the-tree work riders. And that is the skill level that every trainer in the country needs.