AT first glance, it is disappointing that Lucida hasn’t won yet this season. Three runs, three defeats, would not have been Jim Bolger’s plan. However, there have been genuine excuses for all three defeats.

On her seasonal debut in the 1000 Guineas at Newmarket, she did a lot of running to get into a position from which she could track Tiggy Wiggy. She burst clear on the far side, and she traded at 1/10 in-running before getting caught close home by Legatissimo.

Her second run of the season was in the Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot, when she was held up in last place by Kevin Manning in order to get her to settle. Still last of the nine runners as they turned for home, she finished best of all to take third place, going down by a neck and a half-length to two top class fillies in Ervedya and Found.

Her third run was in the Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket on Friday, when nothing went right. She was keener than ideal initially behind a sedate pace, she had no racing room when they started to quicken, she had to switch to the near side inside the final furlong, and she was only getting going when the winning post appeared.

The Godolphin filly remains top class. A Group 1 win this season is probably a priority, so races like the Sun Chariot Stakes and the Matron Stakes are surely on her agenda, and it will be surprising if, all things being equal, she doesn’t bag one before the season is out.

It is also interesting that she holds an entry in the Sussex Stakes at Glorious Goodwood. You have to go back to Soviet Song in 2004 to find the last filly to win the Sussex Stakes and you have to go back to Marling in 1992 to find the last three-year-old filly to do so.

However, not many fillies run in the race. In the last 11 years, if Soviet Song had not taken her place in the Sussex Stakes line up three times - and she won it once and was second twice - only two fillies would have run.

In a year in which another Duel on the Downs - it’s an annual event now - is dominated by Gleneagles and Solow, Lucida could be over-looked and under-rated if she happened to take her chance, as current tentative ante post odds of 20/1 imply.