Breeders avoid 12-furlong sires like the plague - and poor Los Angeles is the latest victim of this bizarre fashion

What do you do with a horse like Los Angeles? He’s a fabulous creature, winner of last year’s Irish Derby and placed third in both the Derby and the Arc. In today’s currency, however, he is compiling the sort of record that will send him straight into the arms of jumps breeders.

Even with his illustrious pedigree, Los Angeles was up against it at the start of the season. A son of Camelot, his third dam Allez Les Trois is a Group-winning half-sister to Galileo and Sea The Stars’ dam Urban Sea. Blue blood may course through his veins, but he has committed the cardinal sin of winning a Classic over a mile and a half. Which is absurd, of course. There are only a small handful of horses better than him over 12 furlongs. By any account he should be celebrated: a colt of high achievement, doing exactly what he was bred to do, running over the distance that in Britain and Ireland we cherish above all others. At Royal Ascot, however, he was thrown to the wolves.

At the start of the season the Coolmore partners had no choice but to campaign him over a mile and a quarter. Only by excelling over that distance could he become an entity Flat breeders might warm to.