They came as timely reminders - Quito's storming late run to grab the Ayr Gold Cup and Best Mate's open day which attracted over 5,500 adoring fans to his stables in Oxfordshire.
It is events like these that should make the racing world spin around, yet the headlines of late have been all too frequently filled with strife.
There is not so much a whiff but a stench of rebellion in the air, principally from jockeys protesting about restrictions on their mobile phone use at the races.
Riders forced the expensive cancellation of a race meeting at Sandown, after making their point by boycotting it.
Additionally, racehorse owners and trainers, protesting equally furiously about cuts in prize money, tried - but failed - to do the same to a Wolverhampton fixture.
I for one have been feeling more like Stephen Cape, the BBC's industrial correspondent, reporting on the firefighters' dispute, than Radio Five Live's horse racing man.
Quite what can be done on the prize money front if there is no more money in the pot as the purse string holder, the Levy Board, insists, is hard to work out.
A fall in betting turnover is blamed, and any more disruptive action will hardly help that, and the moans and groans of generally fairly well off people find limited public sympathy.
Some kind of restriction on mobiles being used by riders during racing hours was inevitable after a specially commissioned security review recommended it.
One jockey admitted to using his telephone to pass on privileged information, and others obviously have too.
 |  It is boring many insiders, let alone outsiders, to tears |
The Jockey Club had to act, and although it seems the situation should probably have been handled better, the regulator is not being entirely unreasonable.
Sure, the measures will be annoying, no-one is suggesting they aren't.
But they are the sort of things that hundreds of thousands of other working people have to adhere to as well, and the integrity of racing has to be paramount.
Since the breakdown of the most recent 'peace' talks, the riders have declared to the Jockey Club: "See you in court".
Such bravado comes only at a high price, and if m'learned friends do get involved, pundits believe the legal system is likely to support a regulator's right to regulate.
Whatever, the sooner this can all be sorted out, one way or the other, the better for the sake of the image of racing. It is dragging on, boring many insiders, let alone outsiders, to tears.
And we must never get to the stage where the squabbling so completely overshadows the Quitos and the Best Mates, the real stars of the show, that the general public gets fed up and looks elsewhere for its entertainment.
MMIX
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