FOLLOWING ‘Super Saturday’, of which there are several these days, we got ‘Fab Friday’ the week before last, when York was the stage for the Group 1 Coolmore Nunthorpe Stakes and the Group 2 Lonsdale Cup and Gimcrack Stakes.

The marketing people can script the build-up but they do not yet determine the results, thankfully. While there was the ‘dream result’ (unless you put up the bonus) of Stradivarius winning the Lonsdale Cup to bag a million pounds for connections, the Nunthorpe went to the seven-year-old gelding Alpha Delphini, who was winning his first group race on what was his 26th run.