As statements go, the latest from Frankie Dettori could hardly be further from the truth. The jockey feels that Godolphin's poor season has been offensively chronicled. “I feel there is a lot of negativity towards us, for some reason. I feel a bit hurt about it,” he relates in today's Racing Post.

Negativity? Well, Godolphin certainly arouse a range of sentiment. There is puzzlement at their barren run in the big races, exasperation with the spate of injuries to their stable stars, incredulity that so many well-bred horses have flunked, disappointment that they cannot mix it with Ballydoyle. But negativity? Surely not.

Wry smiles may have broken out when this financial behemoth among racing stables first hit a poor patch. Yet one thing was very much taken on trust. The drought wouldn't last. It was a temporary blip of the kind suffered by such as Chelsea and Manchester United.

Remarkably, however, there has been no resumption of normal service. And those wry smiles have long been supplanted by a genuine wish to see Godolphin rise again. There is heartfelt, near-unanimous desire for personnel in the midst of the storm to have something to smile about. The drought has been far too prolonged.

Negativity arises when there is precious little about which to be positive. And if Dettori or any other Godolphin lieutenant feels negative waves, they emanate entirely from a script of their own creation. Once again, there will be no Godolphin runners in the pair of group one races at Newmarket on Saturday. Yet few people - certainly none I can think of - are celebrating the fact.

Other facts are hard to ignore. Not for the first time, the injury list at Godolphin is acute. The likes of Creachadoir, Fast Company, Ibn Khaldun, Literato, McCartney, Ramonti, Rio De La Plata and West Wind have barely been sighted. It is impossible to miss the contrast with Ballydoyle, for whom Duke Of Marmalade, Halfway To Heaven, Henrythenavigator and Soldier Of Fortune remain in contention for the Breeders' Cup.

And what has happened to a three-year-old crop described by Godolphin in March as one of the most promising they have ever assembled? Although injuries have weakened it, none has managed to rise above the ordinary. It simply isn't credible to dismiss them all as the slow-born produce of illustrious parents.

Nor is it easy to overlook the detail that Sheikh Mohammed's success stories this season are New Approach and Raven's Pass. They were the only two of his winter purchases not to have joined Godolphin.

Those, then, are the facts behind Godolphin 2008. Creachadoir's Lockinge Stakes triumph apart, they do not make positive reading. Nevertheless, Dettori's assertion that there exists an anti-Godolphin agenda is a figment of his imagination.

It is clear that Sheikh Mohammed is a man utterly distinct from the band of faceless owner-investors in Premier League football clubs. He is a man of sport. He has transformed Flat racing by keeping horses in training, a development now embraced by Ballydoyle. Had Zarkava raced for him, he would be savouring her four-year-old season along with the rest of us.

His sheer enthusiasm for racing single-handedly prevented a crash in prices at last week's yearling sales, but for which British breeders would have suffered the catastrophic losses of their peers in America and Ireland. How could anyone not wish success on a man such as this?

Seven years ago, when Ballydoyle's Galileo and Godolphin's Fantastic Light locked horns in two breathtaking duels, it seemed like the advent of a new dawn. Sadly, it was to prove otherwise. Rather than revel in Godolphin's mediocrity, the racing community craves a revival. Only then can the good times roll.