So this weekend we salute a man who, as well as finding time to become one of our leading serious stage actors, still puts in tireless work to make the planet a less unfair place.
His two third-placed finishes, on Mr Mole and Box Office, were not the stuff of which legends were built, but this was all about saluting a man bowing out after two decades at the top.
"Jack, my man," he saluted a sleepy-looking gentleman in a leather coat drinking pink champagne out of a tumbler with ice.
While mourning the Guv'nor though, we also salute a legendary man who led a full and truly remarkable life".
At State Bank of India's headquarters in Mumbai visitors may still receive a smart salute from a man in uniform, but, Mr Bhatt says, its technology and products are now "comparable to the private sector".
The celebration, to coincide with the blooming of the Shakespeare Garden, will also include tours, Renaissance music, a talk on plants of Shakespeare's era and readings of his herb- and flower-inspired passages -- a fitting salute to a man who once wrote, "Adam was a gardener".
The mourners lined the streets and saluted the man as a motorcade accompanying his body drove by.
But Dawkins wrote: "Geert Wilders, if it should turn out that you are a racist or a gratuitous stirrer and provocateur I withdraw my respect, but on the strength of Fitna alone I salute you as a man of courage, who has the balls to stand up to a monstrous enemy".
Outside, there was a 21-gun salute and a flypast of warplanes in a "missing man formation", used to salute a fallen pilot.
