I CAN squeeze in a brief review of the first two days of York’s Dante meeting before handing over the reins for a week to the estimable Will Hoffmann.

One thing common to both Wednesday’s and Thursday’s action is that it took place on notably fast ground. I made it borderline “firm” and “good to firm” judged on times, and there was watering overnight to maintain.

The Dante Stakes was a riveting contest and produced a worthy winner in Telecaster and a gallant loser in Too Darn Hot. It also produced a good time – marginally the best of the Derby trials so far in relative terms – with Telecaster running a 118 timefigure, raised to 120 on the back of a 35.55s last three furlongs.

Too Darn Hot, who (to my personal relief) seemed to run out of stamina at the death, gets 116, raised to 119 on account of a 35.35s split, and needs few excuses on what was his return. He is likely to get a bare 10 furlongs (this was 99 yards over with rail movements) well enough under these sorts of conditions.

Surfman and Japan are both rated 110 on sectionals and could build further on this.

Telecaster is now top of my list for Epsom, from Sir Dragonet and a host of others, but he is not a certain runner at the time of writing and no one colt has incontrovertibly stamped his authority. There is plenty to play for.

The Dante was slightly faster than the Middleton on the same card, in which Too Darn Hot’s sister Lah Ti Dar ran an almost identical time and sectionals to him and scrambled home from Rawdaa, the pair getting 109 and 110 sectional ratings respectively (Lah Ti Dar has a 120 figure over further from last year).

Nausha won a muddling Musidora Stakes the day before with a 102 timefigure, raised to 107 on the back of a 35.4s final split, though Entitle(105 sectional rating) and Frankellina (107) might reverse places another day. None of the market leaders for the Oaks has quite achieved the level usually required to win that race.

The best timefigure on Wednesday came from Invincible Army in the Duke of York Stakes, a 120 personal best in what was an efficiently run race.

First Eleven (114 on sectionals in what was a steadily run race), Space Blues (108, with more to come by the look of it) and Garrus (110) were other smart older winners over the two days, and the two-year-olds Bomb Proof (100) and Repartee (105) took up positions near the top of their division.