SIR Michael Stoute’s stock-in-trade is undoubtedly his ability to get useful horses to improve season by season. His record with older campaigners is enviable, so gaining a belated win at the highest level with the six-year-old Mustashry can hardly be deemed a surprise to anyone, and the really telling aspect of this success wasn’t the manner of victory but the palpable patience of connections in delivering a horse to win a Group 1 at his first attempt in domestic competition.

While most owners and trainers with horses who might prove top class tend to find opportunities at pattern level sooner rather than later, Stoute plays the long game like nobody else, and guided his charge to the top via handicaps before giving him his first try at Group 3 level in the second half of his four-year-old campaign.

Mustashry’s rise has been steady rather than spectacular, and only now is he hitting his physical peak having developed throughout last season.

It’s wonderful to watch geldings like him campaigned in such a manner, and while it’s easy enough to crab the quality of the Lockinge, there was no hint of fluke about his defeat of Laurens, for all that wonderful filly will come on for the run.

This was a solid performance at the level, and the grumbling about the weakness of the division disguises the fact that he’s now pretty much the best of the established milers, and there is no reason to think that he will regress from this particular peak. He could well be underestimated in the Queen Anne Stakes, which will suit him ideally. He’s a winner over further, and has an entry in the Eclipse, which could come under consideration, but his trainer stated that the Queen Anne was very much in the forefront of his thoughts, and those of the gelding’s owner, Sheikh Hamdan al Maktoum.

The Ascot contest should see a rematch with the placed horses from the Lockinge, with Karl Burke and Eve Johnson Houghton delighted with performances of Laurens and Accidental Agent respectively, and both trainers echoed the opinion of paddock experts that the pair would improve for the run. Burke felt his filly blew up but was getting her second wind as she rallied near the finish, and she is slated to seek her revenge in the Queen Anne before reverting to a campaign against her own sex, which presumably means repeat bids for the Matron and Sun Chariot Stakes she won last year.

Eve Johnson Houghton revealed that Accidental Agent lost a shoe in the race, but was delighted that he was able to silence his detractors with such a good run on his return, and he goes to the Royal Meeting looking to follow up his shock win in last year’s Queen Anne.

Le Brivido got very warm in the preliminaries, and was poorly positioned after a tardy start, so did well to rattle home into fifth having looked well beaten a quarter of a mile out, especially as he had to wait for a gap and was poorly drawn widest of all, so he’s certainly not one to give up on for all his racecourse achievements don’t quite fit his cult status.