CURRAGH HOMECOMING: BRIAN O'CONNORwas and John Oxx's Currabeg stables yesterday to pay homage to wonder horse Sea The Stars after his Arc triumph

AS SEA The Stars basked yesterday in some glorious autumn sunshine, and a somewhat more inglorious media scrum outside his stable door, there was an undeniable sense of a lot done, not a whole pile left to do.

Sunday’s Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe success at Longchamp has catapulted Sea The Stars to a rarefied plateau in terms of public appreciation for a flat horse and made anticipation of one final hurrah in the Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita even greater.

As it happens, no decision on a trip to Los Angeles for the Classic on November 7th is likely until next week, but there was an undeniable sense in John Oxx’s Curragh stables yesterday that maybe Sea The Stars has already done more than enough.

“My instinct is that it is very late in the year and he has been through all the big prizes available already. It is probably asking too much for him to go to America, maybe a step too far,” Oxx said.

“But nothing has been ruled out. He is an exceptional horse. His coat has started to go a bit but he still has plenty of run left in him. He was as fresh as he has ever been in Paris.

“There is a declaration stage for the Breeders’ Cup in two weeks’ time and we will make a decision by then,” he added.

The tone, though, indicated the self-titled “world championships” at Santa Anita may have to do without the best horse in the world.

That would no doubt provoke puzzlement among the notoriously blinkered American horse-player community, but nothing to shake the awe the rest of the racing world already feels at Sea The Stars.

Happily, though, the figure at the centre of it all remains blissfully disdainful of all the hoopla around him.

The magnificent bay colt paraded in front of an adoring crowd with a nonchalance that even Steve McQueen in his Great Escapeheyday would envy. A lot of amateurs were on the verge of slipping into enthusiastic anthropomorphism as the cameras snapped, and many others in the large audience cooed over the champion. One wag even joked: "The only one missing here is John O'Donoghue."

But it was hard to blame us with even Oxx not bothering to disguise his admiration.

Asked for comparisons with legendary names of the past, Oxx, with typical restraint, failed to indulge in any histrionics along the lines of “mine’s the greatest of all times and the rest are bums”. But what he did say resonated with a lot more meaning.

“Comparisons are impossible, but what I can say is that after 300years of thoroughbred development this is probably the ultimate,” he said. “No breeder could hope to breed a better horse.”

The multi-million euro-breeding role awaiting Sea The Stars next year was also high on the agenda, with rampant speculation about whose stud operation he will ultimately join. Sheikh Mohammed’s Darley set-up has been consistently mentioned, and there are still hopes Sea The Stars could end up standing at the State-owned Irish National Stud. But no final call will be made on that until his racing career is over.

In the meantime, the colt will have an easy couple of days before getting back into the routine of being a racehorse and not a clothes horse for victory rugs.

“To do what he has done this season is a really intensive test. It’s not easy for them to do all the work required and then compete. You can’t really afford for things to go wrong at any stage, and they have to have the temperament to cope,” Oxx said.

“It’s the same with any sports discipline. The winners are those who have the ability to cope with all the demands and then produce their best when it is required.

“It is wonderful to have a horse like this here in Ireland. The last one I can remember is Nijinsky. These flat horses have explosive careers and they aren’t around for very long. It’s not like National Hunt racing. But this fella certainly seems to have captured a wide audience,” he added.

As the cameras clicked yesterday, and Sea The Stars looked at us as if we should all know better, there was no arguing with that.