I MAKE no apologies for returning again to feature the Group 2 Beresford Stakes winner Hotazhell (Too Darn Hot), as this race is one of my favourite juvenile contests of the year. It doesn’t produce a winner who goes on to become a champion every year, but it has a record that is hard to beat for having quality winners.

Aidan O’Brien won the race in 1996 with Johan Cruyff, and when Luxembourg won in 2021, he was the Ballydoyle maestro’s 21st winner of the contest. Among the luminaries he has won the race with are St Nicholas Abbey, Saxon Warrior and Japan, to name a small handful, and in that same period only five times was the race won by a non-Ballydoyle runner.