Tarnawa the star as Europe enjoy four important Breeders' Cup winners at Keeneland

A chestnut filly with sparkling feet brought no small amount of welcome warmth to our world with two and a half minutes of bliss in Kentucky, Louisville, on Saturday.

Physically partnered by Colin Keane but seemingly driven, too, by the heart of a nation and the almost inescapable spirit of Pat Smullen who wore her colours with distinction on countless occasions in the past, Tarnawa’s victory in the Longines Breeders’ Cup Turf was a big shot in the arm for European racing.

The Breeders’ Cup isn’t the Ryder Cup – no genuine ‘us versus them’, or red and blue points scoring. And yet the current state of the sport in Britain, Ireland and France really did demand a positive projection to the rest of the thoroughbred world.

To claim four winners, the joint-best outcome (along with 2013) for the European travelling party since a memorable six at Santa Anita in 2009, and mop up all of the major Saturday races on the grass, felt like an important statement.

A first Breeders’ Cup victory at the 17th time of asking for 72-year-old trainer Dermot Weld and a third for owner the Aga Khan, whose Lashkari took the inaugural running of the Turf at Hollywood Park in 1984, the four-year-old Tarnawa completed her late-season rise to the top of the division with a tremendous show of guts and class.

Granted, there was no Enable, Ghaiyyath or Love standing in her path, but it mattered not.

Keane, recently crowned champion jockey in his homeland, was quality from the starting bell, allowing his mount time to recover after the slightest of early stumbles before doing what he does better than most when it really mattered.

In sweeping widest of all into the straight and ultimately beating the Ryan Moore-ridden Magical by a length, Keane almost perfectly mirrored Frankie Dettori’s passage on Enable at Churchill Downs in 2018, while at the same time fanning the flames around who he may be riding for come springtime, 2021.

What the future now holds for Tarnawa is yet to be made official, but more of the same while racing on at five would be most pleasant, if a little surprising.

Playing ball in another jurisdiction obviously comes with its idiosyncrasies and the Longines Classic, America’s most prestigious race though arguably second to the Kentucky Derby – also won this year by Authentic - in terms of global reach, can be a challenging viewing spectacle.

Bob Baffert saddling the one-two raised even more questions for some given recent controversies around him in the States, while other onlookers aimed at the heavy-handed rides of John Velasquez and Irad Ortiz Jnr as a legitimate point of contention. But there was little doubt the front-running winner was the best colt on the day.

The relatively new home hero in the training ranks is Louisville-born, 40-year-old Brad Cox, whose local barn single-handedly matched Europe’s tally across the two-day meeting.

Cox, who won two of the big races on Future Stars Friday courtesy of Euro-bred Aunt Pearl and Godolphin-owned Essential Quality, was going off like a Minigun by the time his dual Distaff heroine Monomoy Girl battled over the line in front to complete the trainer’s four-star weekend, scenes in sweet contrast to the almost apologetic, archetypal English celebrations of Audarya’s trainer James Fanshawe along with wife Jacko ('Gosh, have we won?!').

Maximising opportunities overseas has been the mission for Audarya since winning a Newcastle handicap on August 2, and how she’s taken to the task, swelling the sums earned in France with a stirring, neck defeat of favourite Rushing Fall in the $2million Filly & Mare Turf.

For Rushing Fall’s trainer Chad Brown - the pre-eminent conditioner of turf performers in the US - it resulted in a first Breeders’ Cup blank since 2013. He will be back.

Aidan O’Brien had been trying to win the Mile since long before then – he was 0-24 dating back to 1998 heading into the weekend – but finally broke through with a gob-smacking clean sweep of the places in Keeneland.

Sure, he was bred for the job being out of a mare who also produced last year’s Filly & Mare Turf winner Iridessa, but Order Of Australia had no real right to win this from a form perspective. Leading home Circus Maximus and Lope Y Fernandez was as impressive as it was confusing.

All three ran on raceday medication (Lasix) as the ‘clean’ raiders Kameko, Siskin, and Safe Voyage were beaten off. Fanshawe also opted in for Audarya, though Lasix didn’t help Peaceful or Terebellum so it would be potentially hazardous to accentuate its significance or lack thereof.

Pierre-Charles Boudot, twice a champion jockey in France and simply superb on Audarya, also stepped in for the stricken Christophe Soumillon on Order Of Australia – what a spin that horse would have given Hollie Doyle on the Friday undercard had One Master not been scratched to allow him into the big one.

Ride of the day, though, had to be Tom Eaves on Glass Slippers as Yorkshire gave Europe a breakthrough success in the Turf Sprint.

Trained to perfection by Kevin Ryan – described as looking a little shell-shocked by Nick Luck on the main broadcast post-race – the sole non-American in the line-up was primarily overlooked in the betting due to the raiders’ wretched record in the race. She ran to form - and some - to defeat the hosts at their own game.

Glass Slippers left it all out there on the course and was duly rewarded - a fairytale result for all of her connections. Though there’s no denying the real belle of the ball from this standpoint was Ireland’s golden girl Tarnawa.