Legal eagle Kinane: who dares wins

The King George: Not so much a head to head, more a dropped head to a disappearing backside

As we flocked into Ascot yesterday, the jaunty Irish woman at the gate of the Members' Stand, flogging copies of the Racing Post, had a ready answer for anyone who enquired. "I see someone having several wins today," she declared, adding with an air of mystery, as though it was some secret for her ears only, direct from Ballydoyle, "Maybe Kinane..."

In the event, the one victory that the Irish jockey had so craved that the prospect of it had encouraged him to haul his legal advisers through the Irish courts on Friday, sufficed for the son of County Tipperary, the man who steered – and that is a largely accurate word in the circumstances – Galileo to an undefeated sixth success and, in doing so, created a candidate for Horse of the Decade as the hyperbole began to envelope the Berkshire course.

But in truth, it was not the kind of day when seers had to look terribly far. If you had closed your eyes during the preamble to the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes and imagined what might ensue, the reality almost matched preconception. Almost, because although Galileo and his chief protagonist, Fantastic Light, owned by Sheikh Mohammed's Godolphin operation, were locked in battle for a second or two in the straight, with Frankie Dettori summoning all from his gallant mount, it was a bloodless conclusion. This was to be no repeat of Grundy and Bustino. By the finish, it was not so much a head to head, but the dropped head of Fantastic Light to the disappearing backside of Galileo.

No wonder Kinane, he of the jutting, determined, jaw and the smiling eyes that cannot conceal their owner's steely intent, just had to be there. To miss it would have been like his compatriot, Roy Keane, being suspended from a Champions' League final – as indeed he was. And we can only imagine what anguish the Manchester United captain suffered.

It was all quite farcical anyway, that a minor indiscretion at Leopardstown should have led to a protracted "will-he, won't-he be there" scenario for well over a week. It was not until Friday morning that his appeal for careless riding was finally thrown out by the Irish Turf Club, to be followed by a 40-minute drive to the High Court in Dublin.

Now, it's not for us to cast aspersions on the mechanics of the Irish legal system. Yet, the more mischievous of us might conclude that the manner in which Kinane extricated himself from a ban which would have denied him yesterday's triumph had much to do with fierce national pride and not a lot to do with the even-handedness of the law.

Suffice to say that Kinane's team gained an interim injunction against the Turf Club's decision and, before you could say super horse, the son of Tipperary was back in the saddle with the alacrity of a Lester Piggott. It had, according to Kinane, in a typical piece of understatement, "been all worthwhile. It's been a stressful ten days. I had to make every effort to be here and I was going to leave no stone unturned to be here today."

This time, Galileo, the winner of the Derby and its Irish counterpart on his previous two starts, at least knew he'd been in a race. If Fantastic Light were human, he would be a platinum executive club member, a true world traveller who has galloped to victory at The Curragh, Sha Tin, Belmont Park, Nad Al Sheba, and Sandown, York, Newbury and Ascot in his four years of racing – a testimony to Sheikh Mohammed's policy of keeping the five-year-old in training.

In contrast, his adversary has spent only two seasons in such a rarefied atmosphere. But Galileo, as he jig-jogged impatiently through the pre-race parade, protected by two "minders", and overheating very slightly, looked the type who had scant respect for his elders. "For Christ sake, let's get on with it," was what his body language shouted.

Even when Fantastic Light came to challenge, with the record 38,000-strong crowd providing an ear-splitting backing track, Kinane knew the engine under him was still firing smoothly.

"He is without doubt the best horse I have ridden," said the victorious jockey, who was born of jumping stock but, appropriately, only five miles away from the trainer Aidan O'Brien's Ballydoyle training base. "He really has everything. He was almost idling when he hit the front, but the other horse came at him and he really went for it then. When I asked my fellow, he just went away."

Now for the Irish Champion Stakes and the dirt of America's Breeders Cup Classic. It was O'Brien who once told us that "This horse will gallop on water". You get the feeling that when one Michael Joseph Kinane dismounts after another facile victory aboard Galileo, he believes that he can walk on it.