CONDITIONS were at their most testing on the straight mile at Ascot on Saturday, in a reversal of the usual situation, and the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes ended up as quite a test, with a final time of 1m 44.88s and late sectionals of around 13.5s per furlong.

That said, the winning time had been over 1m 46.0s in 2017 (when Persuasive won) and 2014 (Charm Spirit), so these things are relative. By way of comparison, Silver Streak ran 13.17s per furlong for more than the final five furlongs of a hurdle race over twice as far at Kempton the following day.