A spokesman for the Committee for Racing Against Persecution, identified only as 'Scobie', reflected on the hurt of those whose beliefs had been so grievously offended.

"What if we were to write articles in the press that said hurling was not God's chosen sport after all . . . how would people from your culture feel about that? Would you too not be angry?" he asked.

John Randall had started the argument. A racing journalist of immense repute and nicknamed 'the Anorak, ' he is renowned for a prodigious memory and grasp of detail - skills which helped him win half a million quid on 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire?'.

He proved to be so brainy on the show that he even knew that a 'spelunker' is somebody who explores caves.

His opinion carries weight in racing circles, and on Tuesday last he wrote in the Guardian that "next month's big race should be seen as irrelevant". The Cheltenham Gold Cup had suffered its very own St Valentine's Day massacre . . . and the triggerman was from within the ranks. It was almost as if Ger Loughnane had used Father Harry Bohan for target practice.

Randall's conclusion is based on the premise that the Gold Cup is run over the wrong distance at the wrong track and at the wrong time of year. Because of this, he argues, nobody expects it to be won by the best chaser, and there should be no automatic conferral of the title of Champion Chaser on the winner. Therefore the race is an irrelevancy. Randall is missing the point.

The Cheltenham Gold Cup was never designed to be a championship race but has evolved as such precisely because champions normally win it. It began life in the 1920s as a warm up race for the National, but when it was won five times by the legendary Golden Miller it began to assume new significance.

Vincent O'Brien propelled it fully into the Irish consciousness with three successive victories with Cottage Rake, and by the time Arkle had won for the third time, the race had joined Lent and St Patrick's Day as part of spring's holy trinity.

He points at the careers of Desert Orchid, five times the top rated chaser, but only one Gold Cup, and Florida Pearl, for a time officially rated a better horse than Best Mate despite losing to him at Cheltenham. Ratings are only a device to measure the performance of a horse in a particular race and as a guide as to how it might perform in the future, but it is races that bestow championships. If you don't believe this just ask Paula Radcliffe or Sonia O'Sullivan if they would swap their best world rankings for an Olympic gold medal.

"The Gold Cup is not a championship test mainly because of shortcomings in the race itself, especially in terms of the course and distance, " he asserts. This is like saying that Wimbledon is a bad tennis tournament because it is played on grass and that Boris Becker was not a true champion in the year he first won it, as he was unseeded.

It is difficult to find the logic in faulting the race because of the track and distance. Each horse has different strengths and there is no reason why those who are better over two and a half or three miles on a flat track should be lauded as superior to those who are equally effective over a longer distance and have the flexibility to run up and down hills.

A direct equivalent in flat racing is the English Derby. If this race was redesigned now the last place it would be run is on that ski jump in Epsom, and it would certainly not be over a mile and a half. But the winner is always the Derby champion.

Randall is correct in his feelings that injustices are done when 'plodders' such as Norton's Coin and Mister Mulligan are remembered as champions when the likes of One Man and Florida Pearl fail to make it to the roll of honour. This is unfortunate, but hard cases make bad law.

The Gold Cup is still the history maker for staying chasers and in years hence few will recall that in Beef or Salmon's year of 2006, most of his serious rivals were not at the track but at home nursing sore legs.

Back on the Curragh, Scobie crumpled the newspaper he had been clutching and flung it violently on the turf.

He dropped to his knees and pounded it angrily with his riding crop. Between the frenzied swooshes of his whip, his desperate wailing could just about be heard. "Irrelevant?

I'll give ye shaggin' irrelevant."