It’s 11 years since the Qipco British Champions Day was created, despite the idea for a top-quality end-of-season celebration being met with anything but overwhelming support.

There was no end of opposition to the tearing up and piecing back together of the big races in the closing months of the Flat programme. It may never reach perfection, but much of what the masterminds behind the glittering Ascot card dreamed of has been achieved.

Now it stands on the cusp of overtaking France’s revered Longchamp meeting as Europe’s premier destination for top-class Autumn targets. The Arc de Triomphe will always be a draw for the strong-staying mile-and-a-half performers but the supporting card is in danger of disappearing into the Paris mud.

This year, France’s greatest race could not have had a more popular victory with Aplinista slicing through the Grimpen Mire, but it wouldn’t take Sherlock Holmes to come to the conclusion that it was hardly a stellar line-up.

It is hard to argue that William Haggas made the right call in swerving such testing conditions with Baaeed in favour of the Qipco Champion Stakes.

He will take on another Arc absentee at Ascot in the shape of last year’s Derby winner Adayar. Both would have been towards the top of the betting had they turned up at Longchamp and, in Baaeed’s case, he could easily have been sent off odds-on.

The decision might not have pleased those desperate to see Europe’s best horse beaten so they could smugly say, ‘I told you he wasn’t all that,’ but it means British racing fans get to see the most talented horse since Frankel one last time.

The Queen Elizabeth II Stakes is also shaping up to be a cracking race with top filly Inspiral set to take on French Classic winner Modern Games and rapidly-improving Jadoomi.

Other intended runners on Champions Day include star stayer Trueshan, St Leger victor Eldar Eldarov, unlucky Oaks runner-up Emily Upjohn and Melbourne Cup heroine Verry Elleegant. There could be no less than seven previous Group 1 winners in the Qipco British Champions Sprint, headed by last year’s winner Creative Force.

Compare that potential line-up to Longchamp’s top sprint. Only A Case For You went into the 18-runner Prix de l’Abbaye with a top-level victory to his name.

Ascot’s sprint could see Kinross turn up following his first Group 1 victory in the Prix de la Foret on Arc day – a race hardly choc full of top-class seven-furlong specialists. Longchamp’s big-day does host a couple of top-level races for two-year-olds that you would think would throw up future stars.

When the Marcel Boussac and the Jean-Luc Lagardere are judged alongside the likes of the Vertem Futurity Trophy and the Fillies Mile, then their respective rolls of honour favour the British races.

In a perfect world those Group 1 mile contests would be staged on Champions Day but that obviously wouldn’t sit well with either Doncaster or Newmarket. It would, however, allow the turf season to come to a close on Champions Day instead of lingering on into November.

It would make for an even greater festival and this year there is again cause for celebration as the weather is unlikely to spoil the party.

The ground at Ascot is expected to be around good to soft for the second successive year. If track chiefs had decided to water the course on the lead up to the meeting, as reportedly happened in France before the Arc was held on extremely testing ground for the fourth year in a row, Chris Stickles’ picture would have appeared on dart boards in stables up and down the land.

Several of Ascot’s enclosures are already sold out so it promises to be what Qipco British Champions Day was created for.

A day of top-class racing to showcase the sport in its best light and a meeting to rival any of the big events anywhere in the world. It’s on the way to being job done.