ONCE again, last Saturday’s Ebor was run without a three-year-old and, once again, the calls came for positions in these big handicaps to be allocated based on handicap ratings, not on weight carried.

Of course, you can see the point. The 12lb weight allowance that three-year-olds get from their elders over a mile and six furlongs in August means that only a really highly-rated three-year-old will get into the Ebor. On Saturday, for example, the lowest-rated horse was the 98-rated Havana Beat, who only got in as a reserve when Ivan Grozny was ruled out. So you would have needed a three-year-old who was rated 110.