Sussex Stakes Preview: The Duel Personalities

'You tell him.'

'I'm not telling him, you tell him.'

'Just tell him, will ya.'

'If you don't tell him, he's gonna say it, cos I'm not telling him.'

'Well, he'll just have to say it then, cos I'm not telling him either.'

'Fine, we won't tell him then and just let him say it.'

'But - '

'Are you gonna tell him then?'

'Nah. I'm not telling him.'

Five minutes earlier...

'So, Tyson, have you worked out what you're going to say to Klitschko in the conference?'

'Yeah, lads. I'm gonna say he has about as much charisma as my underpants, then say zero to ram it home, then say I'm interested in breaking his face in.'

Sometimes, in a showdown, it's better to just concentrate on what you're good at and walk the kick-ass walk rather than talk the kids-crass talk, to go straight to the slayground and not stop off in the playground.

You don't get it in racing, not since Jim Bolger, calculating cornerman for Dawn Approach, said that if he had a horse as good as Toronado he 'wouldn't have named it after a clapped out coupé.'

They made a movie of their rivalry, Duel On The Downs II, the sequel to the anti-climactic original whereby Frankel cracked the Canford code halfway through, and what the second installment lacked in the same star quality it made up for in greater tension and drama, a twist in the tale as this time, for the first time, the coupé got up before dawn.

And so to Downs Duel III, which has the working title of Where Eagles Dare To Fly So Low. Far from Bolger fury let alone Fury fury, the very idea of O'Brien and Head having a cut or a cuss at each other is beyond even parody, staged or not.

'I can't read that out,' says Aidan, 'he mightn't be tall but he's not as small as a monkey, his horse isn't a non-runner, and sure I don't mind a eating a bit cheese myself.'

To anthropomorphise the horses by putting them in a makeshift, make-believe, war-waging weigh-in doesn't work either, because neither Gleneagles nor Solow gives the impression of having a nasty streak. It must be in there somewhere, of course, to have won seven in a row like Solow and eight for Gleneagles, unbeknown to him that the French took one off him, but the pair in nature are more massive-progressive than passive-aggressive.

There's an unflappable focus about Gleneagles, something of the eye of the tiger, and when Irish eyes are miling sure tis like you'll know he'll win. And Solow has a sprinter's engine in a stayer's body, a combination that makes him deceptive, almost the anti-swan in that he looks to be paddling on the surface but is gliding underneath, in a style that could be described as laissez-flair.

What both have got in common is a cultivated air of invincibility. But one is about to be made vincible by the other, to be manhandled out of the 'in' crowd.

Ratings, conditions and tactics are the deciding deliberations, while you won't have to wait for an age for weight-for-age to be brought up, but little will be discussed about their personalities, of what makes them tick, and imagine the insight we'd get if both were able to fill out a piffling pop profile...

There is only 1 lb between Gleneagles and Solow in the weights-adjusted Timeform ratings for the Sussex Stakes, and in races of such fine margins the art and craft of tactics is magnified.

One subtle yet significance difference in the make and shape of the race from how it looked several weeks ago is the rapid rise through the miling ranks of Arod, and while he might not have much chance with the big two, he'll certainly have an influence on them.

The presence of Arod changes the game, for the better, as, before his coming of age coming to Goodwood, the personal presumption was, on a speed-orientated track such as Goodwood, that Gleneagles could and would outsprint Solow, if not like Kingman did to Toronado then perhaps like Toronado did to Dawn Approach.

But part and parcel of Arod's transformation from Derby also-ran to miling marvel has been forcing tactics, less keen and more mean now he's just let rip from the front, and the faster the pace the leveller the playing field and the happier Solow will be, Arod the perfect foil for his momentum-mustering mode.

Arod will make it less of a sprint and more of a race, and a readable one at that. Phase 1: Arod presses on rounding the home turn, approaching the last three furlongs. Phase 2: Solow goes gradually through the gears, in the anti-swan style of looking to be harder at it than he is, getting to Arod a furlong out. Phase 3: Gleneagles attacks Solow inside the last.

Then, and only then, will we find out who's the best miler in Europe and who, so the saying goes, has the charisma of the other's underpants.