stilvi,
Think Richard was being tongue in cheek about The Leger, hence the exclamation marks 
Jonibake,
Weren’t Pawneese & Dahlia 3 year old fillies when they won the King George? Or Danedream & Treve in the Arc recently? Although I’m sure a bit of interesting minor turf trivia for some, not sure it’s much of a factor which country they were actually trained in compared to horses actually winning the races as Taghrooda proved.
How could it be discussed prior to the race, when hardly any reference to the "sporting" nature didn’t appear till after or near the end of the race?
It was purely media driven, I don’t recall connections of the horse making any claim at all that they were making a "sporting" decision.
Think the comments from connections best sums up their thinking.
Angus Gold stated the weight allowance helped tilt Sheikh Hamdan towards running at Ascot instead of the Curragh.
"I said to Richard Hills before we confirm for the Irish Oaks that we must look at the King George and see what was likely to run,"
Gold said "He came back and said with this amount of weight we must tell Sheikh Hamdan and give it serious consideration"
"The more we looked at it, the more I thought that if she was as good as I suspected they’d have to be good to give her that weight"
"Sheikh Hamdan made the call and spoke to Gosden & Weld"
"John made the point that if she was in training next year why don’t we go for the Irish Oaks, but if Sheikh Hamdan was going to retire her go for the big one. It’s Sheikh Hamdan’s policy to retire three year old fillies , hence this came about."
So there we have it, a practical and logical decision made by connections without a hint of all this romantic nonsense that was solely whipped up by the media (as usual).