Whether you are a mouse, a man or an O'Brien, your best-laid schemes can go agley. Young Joseph of the latter ilk may have given Camelot an inch-perfect ride to take the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket on Saturday, but two days later at the Curragh he for once seemed to get the fractions wrong on one of the Ballydoyle older stars, St Nicholas Abbey.

Connections of the two most lauded racehorses on the planet, Frankel and Black Caviar, have been given a carrot of £1m to square up in a showdown that would command attention far beyond the sport's regular audience, even during the Olympics. With an aggregate of 28 wins from 28 starts between them, Frankel and Black Caviar have hitherto seemed unlikely to meet, even though the latter is being sent from Australia this summer to run at Royal Ascot. But Sheikh Fahad al-Thani, who has invested heavily in the British Turf, has now raised the stakes to a level both camps may find hard to resist.

Though the whole purpose of this meeting is to bring together disparate racing cultures, punters can hardly know beforehand how the varied form lines will measure up. In pure value terms, however, it seems a little presumptuous to be making So You Think a warm favourite for the Dubai World Cup, not least when the reputation that preceded him from Australia last year ultimately seemed to be placed in due perspective.

On a vile afternoon of icy squalls, the melancholy fact was that the hurdlers most competent to warm the cockles going into the big race were not actually taking part. First there was the eponymous, 19-year-old hero of the Istabraq Festival Hurdle, who looked in the pink of health as he jogged round the parade ring beforehand. And then there was Hurricane Fly, almost certainly the best in their discipline since the triple champion hurdler, and supposedly in his prime. Unfortunately, his scheduled return had again been postponed when he failed to appear among the final declarations for this, the last big race of the Christmas meeting. Though his trainer, Willie Mullins, insists the horse has no structural problems, he is plainly not blossoming as yet. In the circumstances, perhaps the mare who filled the breach yesterday should not be dismissed too hastily.

It may sound sacrilegious, as Kauto Star seeks another piece of Turf history at Kempton on Boxing Day, but something equally momentous might conceivably get under way 15 minutes earlier – in a £3,500 race at Wolverhampton. Few will be paying the slightest attention to Harvard N Yale, not least with the holiday programme over jumps apparently secured by a mild weather forecast. Unlikely as it seems, however, this young colt will be taking the first tentative steps towards a summit never yet scaled from this side of the Atlantic.

Inside Track

Mare should gain record fourth Breeders' Cup victory on a good night for Europe

Last year's runaway Juvenile hero did not show for the Derby, but is in town again with unfinished business

Her every step now leaves a valedictory impression, and already she walks alone.

One tense saga seems unlikely to be resolved today, albeit the British Horseracing Authority expects revised recommendations from the review group that drafted the contentious new whip rules. But another seemed to have run its course yesterday when it emerged that Kieren Fallon is prepared to abandon his quest for a seventh jockeys' title in order to ride overseas during the final week of the campaign.

The first blush-saving confirmation of the truce between Britain's jockeys and the British Horseracing Authority came yesterday morning at around 10.45, when the names of the runners at tomorrow's Flat meetings at Windsor and Pontefract were accompanied by those of their riders. But a strike by the reinsmen, who had threatened to down saddlestomorrow in protest over newly introduced rules about and penalties for whip misuse, remains an option.

Arc or Champion Stakes could top the agenda after Leopardstown victory over Snow Fairy

Ireland's premier all-aged championship on Saturday so perilously resembles a lap of honour for So You Think, who counts two stablemates among just five potential opponents, that people already seem more interested in his next race. And there was a strong hint yesterday that a return to Australia for a third Cox Plate might be abandoned so that he can replace Coolmore's retired Derby winner, Pour Moi, in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe.