IT’S been a pretty eventful week on the Sussex Downs and, with all the drama that has unfolded over the past few days, I thought it best to take us back to day one, to an eye-catching runner-up who might otherwise get lost in the noise, writes Page Fuller.

Zavateri was an impressive winner of the seven-furlong Coral Vintage Stakes and looks a Group 1 horse in the waiting. But the horse who chased him home showed plenty of promise in defeat.

Morris Dancer was quite weak in the market, and most people would be forgiven for writing him off halfway through the race.

He completely fluffed his start, taking a massive 3.27 seconds to reach 20mph. This was 0.79 seconds slower than the winner, and meant that he was already 0.76 seconds behind Zavateri by the end of the first furlong.

Unfortunately for Morris Dancer, the writing was on the wall from that moment. He eventually managed to get his legs together and, in the final couple of furlongs, sprouted wings, but it was too little too late.

He clocked the quickest Top Speed of the race when hitting 40.74mph in the penultimate furlong, and completed the final two furlongs 0.3 seconds quicker than Zavateri. If he’d not given away so much ground in the first part of the race, he might have been able to make better use of that finishing effort.

For now, we are left with the benefit of hindsight, so we have to hope that he will have learnt from that experience and can bring the same level of form when we next see him. He was strong enough to the line to suggest a mile should be no issue for him either.