France does not have an equivalent of Richard Hannon – for a start nobody across the Channel trains for the Queen. He is at home in his local ‘pub’ for whom he trains a two-year-old – his so-called speciality - as in the company of Her Majesty who takes every opportunity to visit the uninhibited Hannon establishment, a stone's throw from Stonehenge. A few years ago the Queen described events as her “annus horibilis”. 2010 is Hannon’s annus mirabilis. The three best horses of his 40-year career, Paco Boy, Canford Cliffs and Dick Turpin have arrived in a rush and the last named, the only one not to land a race at the highest Group One level, rectified that omission at Chantilly in the Prix Jean Prat.

Sheikh Mohammed takes his “the biggest risk is not taking any” from the Hannon training manual. Ignoramuses translate this with the scornful cliche "throw enough muck at a wall and some is bound to stick". It is true Hannon horses don't stand idle for long, but challenging Lope de Vega in his backyard looked a hopeless venture after Andre Fabre's colt had seemingly established an ascendancy over his generation: there seemed no good reason why Dick Turpin would reverse the result of the Poulains. Yet the attacking Hannon philosophy was fully vindicated: Lope de Vega wasn’t himself while Dick Turpin revealed even greater talent than when he was runner-up to Canford Cliffs at Royal Ascot.

No top mile race will be safe from Hannon’s three musketeers and he has gone from seeking a Group One for each of them, to seeking greedily for more. The Marois and the Moulin are in their sights.

Français beware ! Hannon will be back. His last trainer's championship was as long ago as 1992 when Mr Brooks took the Prix de l’Abbaye. Now Canford Cliffs “the best I’ve trained” has catching up to do in France after his defeat in last year's Prix Morny. Paco Boy landed last year’s Prix Foret, and Dick Turpin has performed his French party piece at Chantilly.

Each of them is now a millionaire – and the three all told didn’t cost as much as £100,000.

Another British cliché is "sell them cheap and stack 'em high". Hannon wouldn't argue with that one.

For the attention of France-Galop

Dear Messieurs

We British have use of a cliché when we are truly offended - we write letters to the newspapers (courrier des lecteurs) always signing off, “Yours truly, indignant of Tunbridge Wells”.

As though anyone in Tunbridge Wells, a small sleepy town located in the soft underbelly of England, would ever be indignant. But euphemism saves us from expressing our true feelings which would surely be censored.

The Lloyd-Webbers, residents of leafy Berkshire, controlled themselves (admittedly in a pressure cooker) when their Dar Re Mi was heinously disqualified from last year’s Prix Vermeille after beating Stacelita and Plumania – fairly and squarely.

The Longchamp stewards decreed the Lloyd-Webber filly had interfered with the fifth horse, Soberania (German for goodness sake).

Yet stewards at Saint-Cloud for the Grand Prix didn’t apply the same rule when Plumania nodded on the post a fraction ahead of Youmzain. Plumania had balked fifth home Pouvoir Absolu.

Youmzain has finished runner-up in the last three Prix de l’Arcs. Why he wasn’t given it by Longchamp stewards the day Dylan Thomas mugged half the field is one of racing’s great mysteries. What have you French ever given us? Nicholas Anelka - merci beaucoup. Did the referee, England v Germany, have more than a squirt of French blood?

Youmzain hasn’t won for two years – then it was the Grand Prix de Saint Cloud; it is his day and he was robbed this time. His trainer, the combustible Mick Channon, got himself worked up – though surprisingly not with the stewards.

“Just when you think you’ve got life sussed,” he said, “it bites you in the arse”.

Indignant? Your correspondent is reminded of the gorilla who was asked if he was wild about being captured. “Wild? I was positively livid.”

French weekend headline: “Soumillon bluffe Auteuil”. Your English correspondent interprets this (literally of course) as France’s leading Flat jockey having se foutre de his jumping counterparts when running away with the Grande Course de Haies on Mandali.

Soumillon gives out some strange signals, most notably when pointing to his backside at Ascot one day – a gesture not well received by those in his rear.

Royal Ascot week bluffed the whole world that things are fine in British racing. Betting turnover was good; the racing was gripping and champagne fountained as huge crowds happily cheered home winners wherever they came from.

Actually racing in the UK is in turmoil as we gaze enviously across la Manche at the riches bestowed by the PMU. We are looking very nervously at this week’s emergency budget in Westminster. If the promised belt-tightening hits racing, next year's Royal meeting will be a much more sobre affair.

The performance of the five days came from France’s Goldikova in the opening Queen Anne Stakes though it was not that far in front of Andre Fabre’s similar Group One success with Byword in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes on the second day, Wednesday.

This was the master trainer’s seventh Royal Ascot triumph: The Queen Anne was Freddie Head’s first.

Olivier Peslier we have bowed to often on his Ascot trips – Goldikova was the seemingly eternally smiling French jockey's 14th Royal meeting victory. But Maxime Guyon was new to us and when we ceased misspelling his name (one misguided reporter mused whether “Maxine” was the French version of Hayley Turner?) we admired his assured handling of Byword on his first UK ride.

Byword had chased Goldikova home in the d’Ispahan; Paco Boy was only repulsed by Goldikova’s strength of purpose in the Queen Anne. They all may meet again in Deauville’s Marois where perhaps it is too much to hope for other Ascot principals Canford Cliffs and Dick Turpin, first and second in the St James’s Palace Stakes, turning up to make it the ‘Mile of the decade’. Makfi may be back for that too; he had a reported throat problem when losing his unbeaten record in the St James's Palace.

The frog that lodges in Aidan O’Brien’s throat escaped, and the Irishman's characteristically muffled responses gushed out after Starspangledbanner's stellar performace in the Golden Jubilee..

O’Brien was so over-excited it soon became apparent that this ex-Australian sprinter will not be returning in a hurry to take up stud duties for Coolmore Australia alongside his father Choisir. The Prix de l’Abbaye is likely to be his final port of call in Europe.

Football has, for once, united our nations against a common enemy – our World Cup teams (and Nicolas Anelka). Why racing should struggle for public empathy when it provides entertainment of the standard of Royal Ascot and the Arc weekend, as opposed to the miserable repayment made time and again by our overpaid footballing dilettantes, is beyond me.

No need to porter des oeilleres to regard the Investec Derby as being a greater advert for French bloodstock than the next day’s domestic Prix du Jockey Club.

Without a French runner or even a French-bred in the Derby one concluded beforehand that there might have been a lack of Gallic interest in Epsom: nothing could be further from the truth.

Record breaking (timewise) Workforce is a son of Darley’s Haras du Logis-based stallion King’s Best: runner-up At First Sight emerged from the mating of Galileo with Healing Music – her abode is another Calvados breeding establishment, the Haras de Bourgeauville.

And third home Rewilding was of course brought to a peak by Andre Fabre before being whisked off to Newmarket by Fabre’s bosses, Godolphin.

Jan Vermeer, fourth, destroyed his Saint-Cloud Criterium International field last November.

If Jan Vermeer, or any other foreigner, returns he will find France’s new champion Lope de Vega, named for the 16th century playwright, Spain’s Shakespeare, has rewritten the script for the season.

In the Poulains Lope de Vega, like Makfi at Newmarket, had been too strong for the foreign colts.

At Chantilly, Coolmore's Cape Blanco, conqueror of Workforce (who had a legitimate excuse) in the Dante, was thought well capable of handling the French. Instead he was manhandled back to tenth.

Lope de Vega is by Shamardal who won the same pair of Classics – Poulains and Jockey Club - for Godolphin.

And his Gestut Ammerland owners can savour victory where their Hurricane Run narrowly failed. And also recall that soon Hurricane Run went on to greater glory - but under the Coolmore banner.

Whither Lope de Vega? How soon before his sire’s owners come calling?

One meeting that may never happen is the championship match with Workforce. The nearest we are likely to get is the collateral form which places them upsides: Jockey Club second Planteur had beaten Rewilding in the Noailles.

Andre Fabre is saying that the Machiavellian influence on both sides of Lope de Vega’s family may make him too excitable for the mile and a half, which is Workforce’s destiny.