Maybe those that made George Washington favourite in yesterday's Prix Du Moulin at Longchamp should have paid more attention to Kieren Fallon's assertion after Saturday's Tattersalls Millions Irish Champion Stakes that Dylan Thomas is the best he has ever ridden.
It doesn't take a brilliant memory to recall how George Washington was the recipient of that evocative title in 2006 but not enough of that three-year-old brilliance seems to have survived a curtailed stud career and yesterday the enigmatic colt managed only an uninspired third to Darjina and Ramonti.
Of course sometimes the labels pinned to Ballydoyle's finest appear to have more to do with the proximity of a stud career, and the consequent stallion brochure, than they do to a reasoned assessment of inter-generational form.
Michael Kinane's barbed response to the inevitable comparison questions following Azamour's 2004 Champion Stakes triumph, which came a year after vacating the Ballydoyle throne, was that he didn't do politics anymore! Sure enough Fallon's description of Dylan Thomas will do the four-year- old's value no harm at all but sceptics also can't deny the very real merit that the record-breaking winner will bring to stud following his racing career.
No other horse has ever won the Champion Stakes twice and when Aidan O'Brien, winning for the fifth time in eight years, described the Leopardstown feature as possibly Europe's most important event in terms of making a stallion, he was thinking in hard commercial terms.
Ireland's champion trainer was not making similar claims to his jockey about Dylan Thomas's place in the pantheon of the last remarkable decade of Ballydoyle domination but success in next month's Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe could still secure him a unique spot.
Europe's premier all-aged race is a rare blank in O'Brien's glittering CV and victory at Longchamp on the first Sunday in October might yet mean as much in terms of pure satisfaction as it would in commercial value.
That Dylan Thomas remains unchanged in ante-post betting at 6 to 1, with the trio of Authorized, Zambezi Sun and Manduro ahead of him, reflects what a vintage Arc it could end up being although the O'Brien horse will surely relish being returned to a mile and a half on good ground.
"When he gets fast ground and a fast pace, he's almost unbeatable," O'Brien said. "If the ground is okay, we will look forward to the Arc this year."
With the likes of Soldier Of Fortune, Peeping Fawn and even Scorpion also in the "possible" class for the Arc, the trainer will go to Longchamp with a strong hand to play and there may even be those willing to bet it's a clean sweep sort of hand.
On Saturday, for the third time this year, O'Brien saddled a 1-2-3 in a major Group One event as Duke Of Marmalade chased home Dylan Thomas with the pace-forcing maiden Red Rock Canyon hanging on for third.
"You wouldn't believe how he works at home and he's only starting to get it together now on the racecourse," O'Brien explained of the latter while nominating the Champion Stakes at Newmarket, or a Breeders' Cup race, as a possible next target for Duke Of Marmalade.
Echelon completed a big race double for the British champion jockey Ryan Moore when she quickened best off a slow pace to land the Coolmore Fusaichi Pegasus Matron Stakes, comfortably holding the 2006 winner Red Evie.
Earlier Moore had picked up the Group Three Kilternan Stakes on board Mark Johnston's Hearthstead Maison.
For the future though, there were some considerable hints dropped by Dermot Weld and Pat Smullen who won both juvenile maidens with Casual Conquest and Chinese White.
The latter did enough in winning by six lengths to earn quotes as low as 16 to 1 for next year's 1,000 Guineas.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)