First things first. The best horse won the Derby. Moreover, he was the subject of a memorable ride and - given the debacle of a firm-ground defeat only a fortnight earlier - a masterful piece of training. What a shame, then, that until tempers abate and memories wane, New Approach seems a hero without honour.

The Epsom crowd gave him the sort of decorous reception you hear at Royal Ascot, rather than the deafening, Cheltenham-style acclaim afforded of late to Authorized, Sir Percy and Motivator. Then the winning trainer, Jim Bolger, found himself at the sharp end of an acrimonious inquisition, the like of which I have never known after any comparable sporting victory.

The claustrophobic cinema that hosts the customarily back-slapping post-race conference was more overheated than ever as voices were raised, emotions barely kept in check.

Seated next to Bolger, John Ferguson, Sheikh Mohammed's bloodstock advisor, looked dazed. “I know it doesn't sound like it but this is quite a happy day,” he ventured.

That got a hollow chuckle before cudgels were taken up again. It was the Queen who, inadvertently, brought the verbal scrap to a close by summoning Bolger to her box - presumably for the traditional royal congratulations, rather than to berate him for treasonous conduct.

It is not unknown for journalists to adopt false airs of affront when someone casually undermines weeks of newsprint. Resentment of Bolger's contrary attitude to his colt's Derby participation, though, goes way beyond professional inconvenience.

The thrust of the prosecution case is his cavalier treatment of ante-post punters by persistently, even testily, ruling the winter favourite out of the race, only to recant once much betting money and marketing potential had been lost. On the charge of misinformation, he admitted: “You could say that, with some justification.”

But the disquiet runs even deeper. What Bolger had done, over a period of weeks, could be interpreted as disdaining the Derby. And you do not mess with this venerable institution without raising hackles.

Having declared unequivocally that it was not on his agenda, and treated those who pressed him on the matter like children who had failed to do their homework, Bolger brought the horse only after two classic defeats.

He maintains it was an administrative oversight - “an embarrassment to me” - that saw New Approach left in the race at the forfeit stage on May 23. But it is now clear that it was not last Sunday that his second thoughts took root but at least four days earlier. Time enough for him to have alerted the public and even to have given the race an immeasurable boost by taking part in its principal publicity event.

Bolger's insular mind, though, appears to erase such peripheral concerns. It was, indeed, another three days before he even consulted his owner - through Ferguson - over the prospect of going to Epsom, after all. “I give you my word that phone call was the first I'd heard of it,” Ferguson said.

There is no indication of anything Machiavellian or underhand. No evidence that Bolger was even economical with the truth. He seems to have lacked merely the basic awareness of accountability. In time, he will surely conclude that he could have handled it all so much better. Late on Saturday, he would concede only: “We're all much more clever when it comes to hindsight.”

For such an accomplished trainer, perhaps his worst sin was not recognising immediately after the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket that he was harbouring not a miler but a potential middle-distance champion.

Instead, he ran on wholly unsuitable ground in the Irish Guineas and was fortunate to have a sound horse to change his mind with. That said, he performed wonders to redirect the training of such a temperamental colt in so few days, then to nurse him through the notoriously difficult Epsom preliminaries.

New Approach and his pony companion did delay the start - but by nowhere near as long as the Oaks was unfathomably held up on Friday. Then, pulling far too hard, he was anchored near the rear by Kevin Manning, whose subsequent slalom through the field, snatching the lead late on from Tartan Bearer, was breathtakingly brilliant.

It should have been a race to relish, a result to celebrate. To most, however, it felt empty. The first two and Casual Conquest, a gallant third, will probably meet again in the Irish version on June 29. I doubt the ante-post market will be too popular, though.