W hen they were planning their coverage of the great horse and the great race, they clearly decided that the world was not enough. So they started with the universe.

Before they alighted on Longchamp, the BBC took us on a tour of the heavens, spangled with a trillion stars, and accompanied by a suitably cosmic soundtrack that sounded suspiciously like the work of Jean Michel Jarre. Then it was onto Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon while a female voiceover spoke with reverence of "a horse sprinkled with star dust."

Yes, this one was going to be a gusher. The Beeb was live and exclusive from Paris and there was going to be no holding back. It may well have been the final nail in the coffin for the old virtues, like moderation, reserve and even fair play.

Nineteen horses would contest the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe but it was as if only one existed. Sea The Stars was boldly going where no horse had gone before and if it weren't enough to have to carry millions of punters' euro, he would also have to shoulder the weight of a television production that probably cost more than all the Star Trek stories ever told.

But still, they do it so well. And if Clare Balding swoons with superlatives when it comes to thoroughbred horses, it's only because she loves them so much. The first lady of BBC racing, it was she, of course, who spoke of that mystical animal sprinkled with star dust. Ninety minutes later, Sea The Stars would become the first horse in history to win the Prix de l'Arc, the 2,000 Guineas and the Epsom Derby. He was, said some experts, the culmination of 300 years of equine breeding.

Happily for us racing agnostics, the Beeb also managed to relay some pictures of the Parisian thoroughbred -- the human female variety. And it was clear from her classic bone structure, well-turned haunches and haughty aspect that she too was the product of at least 300 years of fastidious breeding.

Mind you, Bo Derek wasn't looking too bad either, after all these years. And to be fair to Balding, she was equally effusive when interviewing the American actress, whose iconic dash across the beach in the movie 10 may well linger longer in the memory than even Sea The Stars' surge for the post last Sunday. A lifelong horsewoman, Bo revealed that "jockeys have always been my heroes."

Which provided Clare with the perfect link for a report on a jockey who had suffered an open fracture of his elbow in a horrible racing accident only 28 days earlier: "And one jockey hoping to impress her will be Christophe Soumillon." We could only assume that Monsieur Soumillon was not the only jockey who would have liked to impress Ms Derek -- and they didn't all have to be actual jockeys either.

Willie Carson, off camera at the time, may well have been thinking the same thing. Willie is Clare's batman on the BBC, a sort of Baldrick to Balding's Blackadder. Every good double act needs light and shade, good cop bad cop, the yin and yang effect. Carson explained that Soumillon had been drug-tested because he wasn't allowed take any painkillers for his injury. And he'd still won a couple of races. "The way he's been riding," cackled Willie, "he doesn't need drugs does he?" "Well, one would hope not," replied Balding, with a raised eyebrow, slapping Carson back to the lower orders where he belonged.

The Curragh at dawn. The Beeb's Rishi Persad had gone over to do a feature on Sea The Stars and his trainer John Oxx: all morning mist, lush green pasture and Chopin accompanying the pictures. Oxx is a calm, understated man. What did Mick Kinane say to him after they'd won the Derby?

It was back in the winner's enclosure. Kinane got down off the horse. "And before he kinda said anything, he just whispered to me, 'This is one of the greats'." Suddenly Oxx has a faraway look in his eyes. And suddenly there's a catch in his throat and he turns away.

Back at Longchamp, the horses are being led into the pre-race parade. Balding is preparing to meet Pegasus. "And here comes Sea The Stars. Here he is." A cheer goes up from the crowd. The horse doesn't flinch. This highly-strung thoroughbred is seemingly not highly-strung at all. He's just a dude. "Now that head is just full of intelligence," remarks Balding as he strolls by. "He's taking it all in, looking at the cameras." She seemed not to realise that he was, in fact, looking around for Bo Derek at the time.

With two furlongs to go, he is boxed in along the rail. "He's got six or seven lengths to make up," declares the race commentator Jim McGrath, "he'll have to be a champion, Stacelita races into the lead now." No sooner said than Sea The Stars makes his move. Kinane has found a corridor and the horse powers into it; the acceleration is stunningly immediate. He is surrounded by seriously swift rivals. Within a few strides he has left them all in his wake.

Oxx is serene afterwards: it may be that a lifetime's work has been condensed into this moment, during that race, with one perfect horse to fulfil all his dreams.

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Sunday Independent